Processing Homesickness

It's Sunday. And since there is not an LDS/Mormon sacrament service in town, I have decided to make Sundays holy in other ways. (Is it bad that later today I'm going to have a "remembrance moment" and pray over bread and water?) I originally planned on spending Sundays exploring other temples and churches, seeking to know God as different religions do. However, I learned that most activity in the temples and churches take place in the evening. This is tricky since I was directed by friends not to stay out too late past sunset. At any rate, I'll visit the Ganesh Hindu temple later today when the sun is not so fiery. In the meantime, I've been reading The Hindu -India's national newspaper-, talking with my host family, reading scriptures, pondering, and meditating.

In my attempts to practice mindfulness, my attention constantly comes back to my recurring emotional pattern of each day. I wake up rested, adventurous, and fascinated with this new culture and world which I have entered. I go out and explore. I greet women in the stores who look at me curiously with a smile, a "vanakkam," and a head bob (I don't acknowledge any of the mens' stares). I ask a barrage of questions and take notes in my jottings journal. I write follow-up questions that I want to inquire about later. Then, around 4 o'clock or so, I begin to feel the emotional drain, the exhaustion of having taken in so many news things. The toll of being in a completely new environment away from everything with which I have grown up. By 9 o'clock at night I'm on the verge of tears wondering what the hell I'm doing here, feeling the familiar tightness of chest and throat, and texting my mom to make sure she knows I love her and miss her. All the while, I feel ashamed for feeling homesick.

Homesickness. My thoughts and shame keep coming back to damn homesickness. More than that, my thoughts keep coming back to the shame I'd feel if others I care about, and particularly whose opinions of me I care about, would *gasp* discover my homesickness!! What would they think?! I'm not as adventurous of a person as they thought! Who is this girl, psh, feeling homesick?!

My thoughts keep going back to that. I keep remembering how I felt embarrassed of telling some people in my life that I wanted to go to India; I worried they did not think me to be "strong enough" to go. I remember my first inklings of a desire to come; I felt sheepish about it. "Oh no," I'd say. "I'm not good enough to go there." And now, in the calm evenings after dinner when I grow sentimental of home, of family and friends in America, I fear that I was right: I'm not fit to be here.

Three years ago I started therapy at my school's Counseling Center. I went in to fix myself. To have this stereotypical, media-simulated transformation where I would reemerge a new and "fixed" person. Voila! I felt that I had some psychological disorder in loving people too much, in being "too attached" , or "unhealthy". Due to various events, I felt that being so loving of people was wrong. I became entrenched in depression, for the above and other heartachy reasons. But after three years of this mindfulness therapy group, I realized nothing was wrong with me at all. Rather, this love and connection with people and friends is something beautiful.

Maybe my evening homesickness is like that too. Perhaps it is beautiful to have courage to go somewhere new, knowing it will be uncomfortable, while simultaneously longing for the people I've left behind. Perhaps it is beautiful to continue to think about the various people I love, who are miles and miles away.

One evening a long time ago, I had dinner at Mazza's in Salt Lake with a friend of mine who had been to India. I told her about my desire to one day go. Then I asked, "What if I have major culture shock? What if I get all mopey and crazy and homesick?" Robyn looked at me and said, "Then you'll be like everyone else who moves to India and experiences the same thing." Wise words.

Fast Forward

The time has come for me to go. People ask if I am afraid or nervous to go to India. I've heard many different ideas of what I should be afraid of, but I don't feel afraid. Although, I have a couple of things I'm trying to prepare for: the switch from a regimented meal plan to eating lots of rice, a paranoia of being pickpocketed, a worry that my relationship with individuals at the organization will be centered around transactions of money rather than friendship, and culture shock.

1) I have progressed a lot this past year in eating a healthy, balanced diet. I have also tried to consume a lot less carbs. Now when I eat a lot of them, I feel like dying. In addition, I have eaten A LOT of Indian food this week. I still love it, but boy, I feel so heavy and immobile afterwards.

2) In Italy I developed a crazy paranoia of being pickpocketed. Before leaving to go anywhere, whether it was leaving the place where I lived or exiting the bus, I always had to literally check my purse and pockets three times to make sure everything was accounted for. And I could have gone on checking; I had to will myself to believe everything was accounted for and to walk away.

3) Enough said.

4) Culture Shock


I've experienced it before, and everyone has. Yes, you too. If a person has experienced changing circumstances in life, whether it's moving from Arizona to Utah or breaking up with a longtime partner, one has experienced culture shock. It's the process your body and emotions go through to adapt to changing environments. But the thing is, if a person is experiencing culture shock when living in a different country, it means that he/she is doing something right. They're growing! They're adapting. And in order to do that, there has to be the sense of loss, or that feeling of being engulfed in the winds of change, in the waves of the unknown.

Each person has different symptoms of culture shock. One of mine is always homesickness and not wanting to leave my sense of place behind. It gets me every time. Leaving my abode in Salt Lake to live with my mom for a few days was difficult. I drove away thinking of all the moments I have lived through in Salt Lake. The bus routes I took. My favorite houses in my neighborhood. The corner of 9th and 9th. The beauty of Temple Square. My friends' house on Lake Street. Utah in the summer time. As you can tell, I very much believe in the power of place.

It is so interesting how moving, or change in general, causes one to reflect and grasp to be back in "how it was". I even started to miss the hard times I've experienced in Salt Lake. Walking up my hill, listening to Lost Stars by Adam Levine, and watching Pioneer Day fireworks below while holding back tears of emotional pain I was enduring at the time. Or strolling home from screenwriting class in the middle of the night along 500 South; the way I walked under the street lamps that glowed in the dark.

At times I am ashamed of my homesickness. And one would think that a person who tends to get homesick would not be so interested in traveling to and living in foreign places. But, it makes sense to me. I appreciate emotions. I try to experience every moment to its fullest, even moments of missing people or things. And I feel that I appreciate the significance of life changes.

I know that hard times and various challenges are ahead, in India and wherever I will be. But I don't feel afraid. I am thankful for that. After all, having fear is not a comfortable feeling. I'm excited for the opportunities. Some believe that before we were born, all of us shouted for joy at the thought of coming to earth and experiencing life. There have been times when I have wondered why anyone would do that with all the suffering and heartbreak that life brings. Now, as I look forward to something, maybe I understand. At least a bit.