Homesick?
Why yes, I am, thank you. I've lately been debating if I was totally insane to undertake this whole crazy scheme. Tonight has been especially tough. Nighttimes are the worst -- right after I turn off the computer, the light, and the radio it's just me in the dark there alone. Ugh.
To try to understand what's going on with me and to calm myself down, I've done some reading about homesickness online, and I have figured out that it's totally normal to feel this way while you're trying to adjust to being away from home. The sites also say that homesickness most frequently and severely occurs in children because they have not developed sufficient coping mechanisms when it comes to dealing with feelings of separation, anxiety, loneliness, etc.
That's cool. But I feel like what I am doing might take a special kind of coping mechanism that until now I never really needed to develop. I have never attempted to be so far away from SP for so long before, and I think it's normal to miss him and want to go home to him. I don't miss home per se ... I miss SP and want him to be here with me right now. His arrival here is tentatively scheduled for 100 days from now, and that feels like a long time away (at times too long).
Additionally, any negative feelings I currently have are probably exacerbated by the following:
1. I have to deal with everything in a foreign language that I haven't spoken on a long-term daily basis in almost 10 years.
2. I know very few people here and don't really want to talk about this with them because if I start crying I won't be able to stop and will be completely embarrassed.
3. I'm wading my way through German-style bureaucracy, most of the time without a clue as to what's going on and what I'm supposed to do next.
4. I'm living in someone else's apartment temporarily.
Put all that together, I'm having a hard time finding anything totally firm I can really grasp onto so far.
Ja, gut. I don't think my coping skills are necessarily malformed (in other words, I don't have the limited emotional development of an 8-year-old) -- those skills are being formed on the fly, as I type this and do everything else I've been doing over the past week. So the bottom line is that it's okay that I'm homesick, it's okay if I feel sad and want to cry a little (or a lot), it will get better as the time goes along, and by the end of the five months here I'll probably be crying because I won't want to leave (go figure).
To try to understand what's going on with me and to calm myself down, I've done some reading about homesickness online, and I have figured out that it's totally normal to feel this way while you're trying to adjust to being away from home. The sites also say that homesickness most frequently and severely occurs in children because they have not developed sufficient coping mechanisms when it comes to dealing with feelings of separation, anxiety, loneliness, etc.
That's cool. But I feel like what I am doing might take a special kind of coping mechanism that until now I never really needed to develop. I have never attempted to be so far away from SP for so long before, and I think it's normal to miss him and want to go home to him. I don't miss home per se ... I miss SP and want him to be here with me right now. His arrival here is tentatively scheduled for 100 days from now, and that feels like a long time away (at times too long).
Additionally, any negative feelings I currently have are probably exacerbated by the following:
1. I have to deal with everything in a foreign language that I haven't spoken on a long-term daily basis in almost 10 years.
2. I know very few people here and don't really want to talk about this with them because if I start crying I won't be able to stop and will be completely embarrassed.
3. I'm wading my way through German-style bureaucracy, most of the time without a clue as to what's going on and what I'm supposed to do next.
4. I'm living in someone else's apartment temporarily.
Put all that together, I'm having a hard time finding anything totally firm I can really grasp onto so far.
Ja, gut. I don't think my coping skills are necessarily malformed (in other words, I don't have the limited emotional development of an 8-year-old) -- those skills are being formed on the fly, as I type this and do everything else I've been doing over the past week. So the bottom line is that it's okay that I'm homesick, it's okay if I feel sad and want to cry a little (or a lot), it will get better as the time goes along, and by the end of the five months here I'll probably be crying because I won't want to leave (go figure).
posted by Jennifer at 14:09
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