nostalgia for here & there.

homesickness is a weird thing. i've been trying to pinpoint what it is i am homesick for, or what it is i'm yearning. plot twist: it's different every time, every week. depends on what's going on back home and what i'm immersed in my current city/province. 

i feel selfish somedays because i completely want both lives. 

i day dream and romanticize one or the other depending on where i am living. i know some people don't get my fickle behaviour with moving back and forth. to be honest, i don't really understand it myself either. i try and look at the positives. like "wow i am so lucky to have so many people, places, and things scattered over the country", or " i love that i know what it feels like to live in the country a drive from the ocean, and in the same breathe can say i know what it's like to live in a big city surrounded by even bigger cities"

i wish the places i loved were a short drive apart. not a 2 1/2 hour flight, or a 22+ hour drive. i wish i could continue to work in my field in hamilton, but spend my evenings and weekends in nova scotia. fyi: i definitely don't make enough money in the social services field to even pretend like this is a reality or option. 

do you ever feel homesick? what do you do to make yourself feel better or encourage the feeling to pass? 

i am learning from past experiences that it's not healthy for me to make any decisions when i'm homesick. kind of how some people may say don't go to bed angry, or make a decision when you're mad. for me, it's no big, life changing decisions are allowed to be made when my heart and brain are in a fickle state. (sorry for all of those people who have been on the other end of my bad and rash decision making) 

as i sit here i am trying to think of the top ten things to do when you're home sick and then also the top ten things about each place i love. as a reminder that it's ok to love both and that i know i am never bound to one place forever. simply that, the home sickness feeling does pass and that it's important to life live to the fullest regardless of which place i am in physically. 

what to do when you're homesick: 

1. call or text your loved ones in the place that you are missing. they're probably missing you too and that nice little reminder that someone is thinking of you is always a nice feeling.

2. remember why you decided to be where you are in the first place. doesn't mean you can't love and miss "home." but remember all of the things you love about your current "home" 

3.make plans, even if they are hypothetically with the people who are in the place you're missing. look at flight prices together, plan the next holiday. have something to look forward to is key!

4. one of my favourite little things to do for the people back home that helps me feel good from far away is to send people letters, or my current favourite thing: post cards! (fun fact: when i was in girl guides i had a collection of postcards and i'm sure the pencil case full of them is still somewhere in my parents basement) 

5.talk to your friends in your current home how you are feeling. if you're like me, most of my friends in my city are also not from here so we have that in common and it's so relieving and refreshing to know someone else in

your space gets what you're feeling

6.challenge yourself to one new thing each week in your current home. sometimes i treat it like i'm on an extended vacation here and i'm just living and working at the same time and that i need to soak up all of the local scenes and experiences i can get. to live like i have a limited time in the city and that i want to see and do everything is very helpful.

7.make a list of the top ten things you love about your current place. make a bucket list with a time line. fully immerse yourself in your current space. it's ok to miss home, but it shouldn't debilitate it from you living your life. 

8.talk to your boss and co-workers. let them know where your head space is. sometimes just telling someone who isn't necessarily in your close circle but you see on a daily basis is nice. especially in the field i work in, we are talkers who care too much about others sometimes. it feels relieving to get it all out sometimes.

9.go to your safe, favourite places in your current city. i'm currently sitting in one of my favourite coffee shops in the city, i even worked here for a little bit before i found a job in my "field"

10. remember like any emotion, homesickness usually subsides after not too long, and if it's doesn't remember the first nine steps and continue to repeat until you feel a little better. 

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top ten things i love about hamilton

1. the culture. hamilton is extremely diverse. i love how many different kinds and types of restaurants, areas, parks, venues, beaches you name it! hamilton has a little bit of everything and i believe anyone could find their niche here. 

2. it holds a lot of the people i love who i miss when i'm in nova scotia! i wouldn't live in hamilton if it wasn't for my friends. it's also a fairly central city so all of the other people i live in ontario also aren't too far!

3.it has opened my eyes to a different level of poverty, addiction and mental health that i didn't see in halifax. i'm not saying it's not in halifax, as i'm sure it is. but for me starting in my field i am thankful for the opportunities and resources hamilton as provided me. 

4.there is always something to do. especially FREE things. gage park for example- i could spend alllll day here. it's a huge park with the coolest tropical green house. there is even free concerts sometimes and so many spots for picnics.

5.two of my dearest friends live only 600 meters from my house and i get to live with two more of my dear friends. it's such a nice feeling knowing there is always someone so nice and close. even when i want to have alone time. knowing others are close is reassuring. 

6.my house. i am in love with my current house. i feel so fortunate to have such amazing landlords, who happen to be friends of mine, how cool is that! they put so much love and hard work into this house and i feel beyond honoured to get to live in it. we have the coolest side patio which has been so perfect for this summer. i always pictured myself being able to host and have snacks and drinks with my friends in a cozy space and this summer that has finally become a reality. i am loving summer in this space but am also looking towards to fall and then to get all cozied up in the house in the winter time

7. the proximity hamilton is to so many other cool cities! toronto, guelph, kitchener, london, niagara falls, buffalo, detroit. things are not far at all. it's nice being in the center of all these other places. road trip options are endless. 

8.the independence that naturally comes with being away from my family and support systems. it's forced me to be more of an adult and to figure things out on my own. 

9. where i live and the style of this city most of the core is walkable - i love being able to throw my backpack on and out the front door on foot to see where i end up.

10.the opporunity to get to live away from home and to have a support system back home and my current home. i truly feel so lucky to have so many incredible people in both places.

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top ten things i love about nova scotia:

1.the fact that i have to say the whole province not one place because i've called so many different parts of nova scotia home. halifax, dartmouth, sackville, west northfield. my grandparents home, my aunts houses. so many different houses i love and have loved getting to spend time there and to have grown up in these places.

2. the atlantic ocean. enough said.

3. the best coffee i have ever ever ever had is from north mountain coffee. i've had coffee in MANY different places and nothing else even comes close to comparing. 

4.the fact that you can drive an hour and be from one side of the province to the other. i love how close everything is. 

5. more or less my entire family still resides in nova scotia. i tend to be the black sheep a little bit. 

6. i have family members at home who get my longing and yearning for travelling and living elsewhere which is always reassuring to have them when i'm feeling a little lost.

7.getting to see and notice the traits my relatives and i possess that are the same. i love learning about characteristics i have that i didn't realize others have until you've chatted about it. 

8. my dog. my grandfather has this saying, " i wish i was home and the dog was here." i think of this often and feel it even more. 

9.walking to the beach with my cousins and family after a family meal... nothing else is quite the same. 

10.the simplisticness that is a small province, city, and town. it can be too small sometimes, or exactly what i need. 

i reached out to a couple of my dearly loved individuals who i've known experienced/are experiencing the same things i am and i wanted to share here their words too. just as a reminder that even if you are feeling alone, lonely, homesick, lost, or confused... i promise someone else gets it, they get you. sometimes you just have to take that little bit of courage, run with it, and ask.

'Well, I was lucky to have really amazing friends. I started a weekly get together with a group of really amazing women who were all also from away. Weekly was easy to do where I was living, but maybe monthly is more realistic in a Canadian city. We became a really solid support for one another and whenever we had family visit from our respective homes we tried to include everyone to a certain extent - so we could all enjoy “mom’s home-cooking” or just hanging out with “family”. Now that I am home, I’m homesick for that home. You’ll never feel truly 100 per cent at home anywhere once you’ve lived away. Plus, now that I’m home I am experiencing all the shitty parts of it that I forgot about while I was away."

"I guess for me I had to first accept that I actually missed home. When I moved away I wanted so desperately to be in a bigger city and leave the small town-ness behind that before I could deal with being homesick I had to admit to myself that’s actually how I felt. That was a tough growing up moment... and from there pinpointing specifically what made my heart long for what it didn’t have.

Once I did that it became easier. I missed communal meals with friends and family, I missed nature, I missed the music, art and culture, I missed the ocean. The one that was always hardest to deal with was the ocean. Cause no amount of relaxation tapes or beach scented candles or lowering your eyes over the horizon of Lake Ontario can make that go away. The other ones I slowly figured out. And believe me I made mistakes and bad choices along the way about how to make myself feel full. Eventually I opened my heart to meeting and really getting to know new people, which is always emotionally risky, and eventually found myself with a circle of chosen family I could share communal meals and holidays with. I explored relentlessly and found some absolute gems of hiking trails hidden pockets of nature where I could feel at peace. I made it my mission to learn about and explore new kinds of art, music food and culture, and to share mine with the group of people I’d built around me. All that said, it can be very lonely. Sometimes we underestimate place and how fundamentally linked it is to who we are and how we move through the world. Dealing with homesickness, (or any kind of loneliness), at it’s core is really about filling holes. The tricky part is making sure you fill them with meaningful things and not crap. You won’t always know that off the hop. It’s kind of like choosing the fast food cheeseburger over the homemade salad. It’ll fill you up, but you don’t always know until later it’s gonna make you feel like shit.

I guess if I had to distill it all down, combating homesickness is about first being honest with yourself about why, and then figuring out how to make yourself feel whole. I’m sure it’s different for everybody. Also - call your mother Text your arsehole brother Make your bed Listen to music and read things that make you long for home and tell yourself it’s ok Cry occasionally Spend a whole day finding the ingredients to cook a thing that reminds you of home and share it with your friends Laugh whenever you can Share stories of home with the new people in your life Burn all of those ocean sounds tapes they just make you sad and then you have to get up in the night and pee. Garbage. "

thank you if you've made it this far, and thank you to my lovely friends here and home, my family members at home for listening to my phone calls and texts when i don't know what i'm doing with my life. happy to be where i am, happy to think about the future and what's next, but also happy to learn to just be here. xo