I woke up this morning with a pang of homesickness, which is weird, considering I’ve never spent so much time in our home as I have this year. I’m literally always home. How can I miss a place I never leave? This year I’ve learned to work at home, to study at home. I’ve learned to hunker down. So, where is this homesickness coming from?
It’s the same feeling as when I’m away. I don’t feel completely comfortable, like there’s somewhere else I should be. The lilt of someone’s voice or the aroma of a certain food or the familiar strains of a song will trigger the homesickness and it hits hard and fast, an ache in my chest that lingers, like a hole has opened up and will only be filled with memories of twinkle lights and of wondrous nativities and of soothing hot chocolate sipped from old Snoopy mugs.
I felt it when I moved away for college, again when we moved away from our parents as a young family to another state, and again when each of our children joined our family. It hit the worst every time a loved one died. And even when there had been no obvious life event to trigger it, from out of the blue, homesickness could still hit, in the midst of joy, despair, uncertainty, or gratefulness.
This year has been a lesson like no other to me, in appreciating home. As a worldwide virus circled the earth, it somehow reined in that enormous expanse and squeezed us all together in a common concern. It tightened, and tightened, until we became encapsulated within the walls of our homes.
Since the majority of the year has been spent here, under the same roof, how am I still encountering moments of homesickness? How, when I’m home all the time?
The answer hit as I sat in this home of ours, in the midst of the very same Christmas decorations we’ve strewn through the house for years, the same Christmas decorations that went up much earlier and have felt more comforting this year than ever before.
Mary and Joseph left their home to pay taxes, along with all who crowded the inns. The angels left their heavenly home to herald the news. The shepherds left their fields and flocks to find the babe they sung of. The wisemen left their homes to follow a star.
And Jesus Christ left his home to come to earth and show us all the way back.
Of course we are homesick, all of us, for we are journeying, plodding along a rutted path, toward home. Of course we ache for a place we wish to be, a place filled with loved ones -- a place filled with loved ones who are waiting at the window for our return.
That answer made this ache going on in my heart a bit sweeter, this journey more profound.
I wish for us all to return home, to that feeling of perfect belonging. I wish, that when homesickness hits, we can remember it’s only for a time, and most of all, I wish us all well on our journeys to get there. Merry Christmas, my friends and family. I love you all.
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