“Coming home” won’t always be a pleasant experience immediately, and I didn’t anticipate that truth happening to me. My feelings when I touched down back in Atlanta, after almost ten months of calling another city and other people “home,” were complicated and intense. I was afraid and sad – plus guilty for feeling such things. Why couldn’t I be excited to be coming home? Shouldn’t it feel safe, warm, and inviting?
I felt like I’d left the safety of the home I’d created for myself back in Newcastle. When I walked off the plane, I felt like I’d walked into an unfamiliar space – a space that was no longer mine and mine alone. That lack of “feeling at home” amplified my homesickness for the place I had created all by myself, just for myself.
My partner’s mother messaged me when I got home, and said, “it must be really weird having your heart in two different places.” And she was more than right. I am longing to return to the other half of my heart, with the other people whose homes I wish to continue to be a part of. I expect that longing will drag me back there, but not before I find my happiness in Georgia again.
Coming home isn’t always happy. It might be angry, sad, lonely, excited, lost, and scared before it can ever make it back around to being “happy.” And that is okay. Home is home because it opens its arms to those feelings, and holds you while you feel them. With patience, love, and warmth, home helps you heal. Home gives hope that the happiness you expected to feel when you get off the plane, will come in time. And until then, home will be there for you, every step of the way.
~ Jo Benshoof
I have experienced similar feelings since I inherited my mother’s home after her death in 2011. It stills feels surreal at times. Did the last six years really happen? However, what you say about coming back around to happiness is true, too. It has taken a lot of time of investing in my healing, including surrounding myself with loving community, to get to that ‘happy’ place. Some days that is harder to obtain than others, but it is there nonetheless. I am learning that happiness is not this grand elation most of the time; it is most often a quiet knowing that you are safe and loved, and that you are glad for it. Happiness is peace of mind and heart, no matter where your emotions take you today.
Beautiful words Jo!
Blessings be upon you as yiu experience all the feelings of home. May you be healed where necessary and held always with love. This speaks for me of the complex nature of all of our homes of we are lucky enough to have more than one.