A friend from an online community I’m part of posted something recently expressing how she was feeling “homesick”, even though she was home, and surrounded by all the things that made her feel the most like herself, and the most at home. She said, “I can’t be homesick, I’m home.” It made me think about a few of my own experiences.
A few years ago, before I met Messy, I was in a relationship that I really wanted to work. At the time, I wanted it to work so much, that all I could see was the immense amount of effort I was putting into “making it work.” I couldn’t see that it was some of my other choices that were making it not work, so I kept investing more and more of myself in the relationship, and screwing it up more and more, until the point that the relationship ended, and ended badly. Both she and I were very, very hurt though, perhaps because she was the more mature and intelligent of the two of us, she got over it much more quickly. It took me years.
The night it all ended, I went home and laid on my bed and tried to just think my way out of the craziness that seemed to have descended upon me. I felt more and more out of control, and soon found myself laying there, in sweat-clothes and under a couple of blankets, shaking uncontrollably. I went and ran a really hot bath and laid in it, and still just shook for a long time before I calmed down.
That night scared me, and the next few years continued to be bad. I got depressed, didn’t seek treatment, and failed to deal with it myself. It affected my grades, my other relationships, my attitude in general, everything. It took my three years to clean up the mess I made of my life during that time. During my depression years, I would find myself constantly thinking about the relationship, constantly being angry and sad about it. I’d remember the good times and want to claw my way through a wall. I never could describe that feeling well, but I think my friend did: I was homesick for that relationship.
Slowly I started to acknowledge that it was my own fault that relationship failed, began to identify the poor choices I made that led to the failure, began to learn from the experience. Looking back, I know that the pain associated with those memories slowly ebbed away, waning day by day and leaving me more and more whole again as I finally sought the help I needed and allowed the healing to happen.
As gradual a process as it was, the realization of what had happened arrived like so many profound realizations do: a moment of complete clarity and introspection, insight born instantaneously, an “epiphany”. I was sitting in church, and something was said that reminded me of one of the best aspects of my old relationship, and I smiled. I caught myself smiling and thought, “Hey, that’s odd. I’m smiling. And actually, these memories… they don’t… they don’t seem to hurt any more. This memory, it’s a wonderful memory, and I’m happy that I have it, and it doesn’t matter that I messed that relationship up, I enjoy the memory anyway.” It was a moment of catharsis and of acknowledgment. There was nostalgia in the memory, and fondness, and a sensation of finally owning my own mistakes that allowed me to own the memories and the joy for the happy times without them being overshadowed by pain, anger, or guilt.
I felt like I’d just stepped across the threshold, just come home after a long, long time wandering around, searching for it and being unable to find it. It was amazing.
I hope my friend is able to find home again, too.
