Homesick

Some little thoughts about home.

Homesickness. I feel it everytime a cool breeze blows, when a cloud looks like a mountain at a glance, and when the rain smells fresh. The pang comes in my heart and my eyes smart. This ache of love for places and people I am not with is familiar. It is a feeling I have felt often in my life.

This feeling would overwhelm me when I was younger. Knowing I couldn’t capture those sensations the same way again haunted me. I wanted so badly to hold those moments in my heart, I would cling to them desperately. The clinging would bring to a place of heartbreak once I realized those things were no longer possible, no matter how hard I tried to bring them back.

Homesickness is missing of the small things: a friend’s living room on a sunny afternoon, a cup of tea at church, a walk along familiar flowers, the smell of moss in the rain. These are the things that make my heart heavy.

I love thinking on these things as they bring me back to such quality time spent with loved ones in beautiful places. These moments remind me of the love shared, warmth created, and community in which we belonged. How can I grieve such lovely things? I am so happy that they happened, so thankful for those moments.

Now I meet more friends, new and old. Community building is long work, but so rich and full. I am so thankful for the new moments being created. I am thankful for new memories we will have and cherish, a new type of homesick.

Smells of warm rain hitting dirt, pink puffy clouds over a flat field, the sounds of distant football games, and waking up to sunlight so often. These things are just as beautiful and worthy of thankfulness.