The inevitable blog about homesickness –for lack of a better term.

I don’t think I’ve ever gone this long without seeing my little sister since she was born!

I’m hoping that in the time it takes me to write this all out, a new term will have come to mind that describes the feeling better than “homesickness”.
Basically, if you ask me if I’m homesick, I’ll say no.  If you ask me if I have been at all, I’ll probably say “yeah, I guess a little every once in awhile”. But it’s not that easy to describe.  I will attempt to show you what I mean with a series of scenarios:
1. Once in awhile something will remind me of home. And I’ll have a slight pang of longing for that something.  Then it will go away and I’ll be on my merry way.
2. Something will pose an irritating challenge (such as not being able to find free water or the microscopic size of coffee that doesn’t come with chocolate) that make me miss the way some things are in the States.

This is a pretty decent sized cup for France.

3. I’ll talk to a friend on Facebook and miss them specifically.
4. I’ll see events or exciting things going on at school from e-mails or Facebook and I’ll miss the WOU community.
5. Hard day, need a hug from family.
6. Start thinking about classes I’ll be taking or where I’ll be living when I get back and get really excited to be back.
7. As well as the excitement of reuniting with people and catching up.
8. And the excitement of experiencing the States and home and everything as a new person, who has changed and learned and experienced so much in the last few months. There are some things I’ll never look at the same.

But then I remember once I leave here I may very well never be coming back. And I imagine that when I get home, I will miss it here and my new friends far more than I miss home right now, because I don’t have a return ticket to Europe. I try to avoid the time that I spend looking forward to being home because I know once I’m there, I’ll just want to come back.

Basically, all of these fleeting moments combined, just make me wish I could combine to two lives and two places and have a perfect, made up, best of both worlds. Don’t we all imagine “the perfect world”?

So let me explain the title. This originated because I couldn’t think of the right word and in the process, ended up coming up with some acronyms. The one that seemed to best describe the feeling was
HSWOAWTGHRN-HomeSick WithOut Actually Wanting To Go Home Right Now…Or just
HWWTGH – Homesick Without Wanting To Go Home. But that has no vowels and there for is way harder to say. So I did some revising and settled on,
HOWTAGH – Homesick (with)Out Wanting To Already Go Home. I know it’s a stretch but try saying it out loud while imagining feeling the way I described above. It’ll do.
Feel free to send me better ideas!

Angers at night.

Emily