On my very first trip abroad, I had been a very young and seemingly clueless traveller. I had no prior travel experience and I had no idea what to do. On this very trip, I had been very home sick. But lo and behold, I had been so sick of home the very moment I got back.
You see, this is the traveller’s curse. There will never be a place where you will feel most at home in, and you will inevitably miss your home. But then again, the moment that you step foot into your house, you begin to feel sick to your stomach and sick of home. Well, at least, that is how I feel…more often that not.
There are days when I would be in the most beautiful of places, yet feel the longing for my brother’s embrace. Sometimes, I would be trashed and tired after a night of partying, and still feel the longing for my best friend’s voice. There were times when I would experience a brand new thing and think to myself, “I wish my parents were here to experience this with me.”
These are moments that I know all too well, for I have experienced them far too often.
You will never know when the next wave of home sickness will hit, but urge you to be prepared when it does come.
But also, there are days when I would be sitting on my own bed and dream of Paris. I could be walking in the streets of my home town and wish I were lost in the souks of Marrakech instead. There were times when I would sit in my local Starbucks and daydream that I were transported back to this quaint little cafe I unexpectedly stumbled upon in London.
The longing never stops, really. It grows stronger and stronger until you have no choice but to book another trip and get the heck away from there. Well, that is what I do. It usually does the trick, if I may say so myself.
To be home sick and sick of home, I would gladly be if it meant getting to live my dreams.
Being home sick means I get to be on the road for far longer than the regular traveller. Naturally, in this way, I get to see more places that I never would have thought of seeing. It also means I have people and a place that I would want to come home too.
Being sick of home means never having to stop my passion of travelling. My curiosity is deepened by this longing, and it is something that I will gladly take. It also means that there is a whole world out there that I have yet to see, and a whole world of amazing possibilities for me to explore.
I can never be too much of one, but I do know that I could be both. Maybe not at the same time, and never in the same place twice. But I could be both, in my own personal way, in a place completely foreign and utterly known to me. I could only ever be either home sick or sick of home.
“But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”
Isaiah 40:31 NIV
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