denial, or what it means to be homesick

In a bus on the way home from school
Aberdeen, Hong Kong // 2017-11-29

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One of the first things people inevitably say upon finding out that I’m an international student (I’m from Hong Kong) is, “oh my god, that’s so far away, it must be hard to leave your family and friends”. I would nod uneasily but was even more unwilling to contradict this assessment. 

I… simply don’t understand this sentiment? I’ve always subconsciously wanted to get out, simply for the change of scenery. I have always dreaded going home, perhaps not in the metaphorical sense, but in the physical sense, and I still don’t know whether I ever had any true feelings about the former. 

Leaving to go to university here wasn’t an easy decision, because it simply wasn’t a decision. Both my parents went to college overseas and it seemed like the natural course of action to do the same. At 17, I felt no fear of the unknown and no sadness for leaving behind the known. 

Nostalgia originally meant homesickness, and until recent history homesickness was not so much a feeling like happiness or sadness so much as it was a disease. The first documented instance of the use of the word nostalgia was by Johannes Hofer, a German physician in 1688, who described it as “grief of the lost charm of the native land”. Well-documented as early as the 17th century, it stayed a medical diagnosis until World War I. 

Homesickness is just that: your current detachment from your physical point of origin, eliciting sadness and probably a lot of stress (symptoms listed includes fever, fatigue and digestive issues, which are all symptoms of high stress). 

This definition assumes two things: 

1. You have a single point of origin (which I do have)
2. You consider your homeland charming (which I don’t feel)

There’s a certain disconnect where I don’t feel a real desire to run away, but also never feel that my homeland is or ever has been, well, home. There may simply be some things in my formative years that have severely impacted my ability to socialize properly and trust that home means safety, but in truth I don’t think I’ve ever felt any way other than that. 

I simply don’t understand homesickness in the way that seems so instinctual and inherent to everyone else. Being an international student is so much of my identity at this school, but that’s because it’s easily memorable without any input from myself. 

Back in the American Civil War, homesickness was seen as a virtue and a noble thing, because it shows that you are rooted in your family and where you’re from. Even now, remembering your roots and where you started is seen as the utmost standard of humility. 

Guilt gnaws at me every time I hear that question. Sure, my family life is turbulent, but I know they love me and my friends care about me too. I have solid friends of more than 10 years now — it really isn’t like I don’t have things to be attached to — but I cannot force myself to be attached. My homeland is going down in flames, and sure I am concerned, but that’s because I’m empathetic in nature for the people who do care and will stand by justice, more than it is because I’m from there. 

All that said, I feel like I know what nostalgia feels like inherently, but can’t put my finger on exactly what it is, otherwise I would not be putting hours into understanding the word’s etymology and how it appeared in medical documents since 1688. Nostalgia comes in waves when I hear the song I played on my 40 minute walk down the beachfront for two weeks in Greece over the summer. Nostalgia comes knocking when I see chalkboards or projectors and/or things that remind me of the concept of high school. 

Is there something wrong with me to feel nostalgia from a two week event and something that never was? Am I not appreciative enough of what I actually have?

It feels more complicated than that. In the present day, nostalgia means more along the lines of a general desire to (re)inhabit something that existed, or something you wish existed, and that certainly partially describes the things I just listed. It’s broad, and it’s even more confusing when you put it up against the original definition. 

Familiarity breeds unintelligibility. How did we get from such a specified diagnosis to this general vagueness of a concept akin to happiness? You can’t teach happiness, you can’t teach love. You shouldn’t have to. It comes when it wants to. 

The truth then, I suppose, is that it does not want to come. 

There have been two particular instances that I sort-of felt homesick, or at least had some kind of real desire to fly back. The first is when my grandma died. 

My grandma has been the parental figure that I’ve always felt safe with, so it is only natural that I would have liked to be there with her in her last moments. 

The second is when my parents announced out of the blue they were moving to Berlin. All I remember after that conversation was me looking up immigration details, because they didn’t think to apply for my visa too, and laughing to myself and staring out of the window without thinking. Even then, I didn’t really feel the fear of potentially never going back to Hong Kong. I didn’t miss my parents, not really, and if I’m entirely honest I think we all know in our hearts it’s better for the family dynamic when I’m not there. 

That night, I called my best friend, and all I could say was, “what is happening?”.

The medical diagnosis for nostalgia died off approximately during World War I, a period of time during which only one person “died from nostalgia”. It was replaced with “shellshock-ness” — the sudden realization of some knowledge that leaves one paralyzed. Being shell-shocked is a good description of what I felt that day. 

What I felt the most shocked about was that my parents didn’t think to tell me about this as it was happening, and barely even mentioned it even when it was finalized. It was the complete unexpectedness of it given what I knew about them. 

It was a misjudgement on my part, and one so erroneous I didn’t know how to rewire my thoughts. And I think that may explain what exactly I am nostalgic about in all of this. It’s the familiarity of people, because they are what makes the world for me. My dad once said that most relationships in my life are formed due to physical proximity, and my nostalgia for my hometown is a product of the relationships I’ve formed there, not for what it is by itself. 

I’ve always kept people at an arm’s length away, scared of intimacy, scared of that misjudgement, and so everything becomes a concept in my mind — vague, abstract and empty. I’m nostalgic for the feeling of belonging somewhere.

Maybe I am homesick after all. Only home is not the physical location, but the people and relationships that make it up.