Tuesday 2 November 2010

Where's my home? I've lost it!

Living in a foreign country poses some difficulties sometimes, especially regarding the 'language' factor that I've spoken about before. If you don't know what I'm referring to, check out THIS POST.
Anyway, despite the obvious fear of losing touch with natural-sounding English and it threatening the quality of my writing, and the idiosyncrasies of the Greek culture mixed in with my Australian in-your-face-ness, there is one more thing in my life that is a little odd. And I kinda miss it. I never ever come home and think, 'ahh ... home sweet home'.
You know why?
Because I have too many homes. No, I do not own houses here there and everywhere, what I'm talking about is the 'feeling' associated with a home. I've lived in Melbourne, (a multicultural city in Australia that has every single thing you could possibly dream of available to you, and a community of easy-going, creative, and artsy types at my disposal), Athens, (a Greek chaotic, polluted city that seems to have a unique charm that not many learn to appreciate until you spend a lot of time there), and Ithaca (a picturesque little island in the Ionian Sea where a small community of gossipers live, which I have learned to love and cherish for some odd, eccentric and irrational reason).
Anyway, what's my point?
My point is, which one is my 'home sweet home'??? I want my 'home sweet home', but I'll never ever get it again, because although I live in Athens permanently, I do visit Melbourne every couple of years or so for a couple months, and I do visit Ithaca at least once a year to see my parents. And every time I arrive, I have that 'almost home sweet home' feeling, but never completely. I feel like I'm missing out on that simple life pleasure of returning home after a long trip. Am I missing out? Or am I whiny for no reason? It may seem stupid being whiny about such a thing, but I can't help it. I want to feel that 'Ahhhhh...." when I step foot inside my front door again. What I have is a 'house'. But I want a 'home'.


How about you? Do you live in a house or a home? And how do you feel about it?

24 comments:

  1. Make a list of what makes a house a home and try to create that is close as you can. Each of the places you mentioned are home, but just to different parts of your life. Take a little of each and create the home you're in now. Good luck.

    Mason
    Thoughts in Progress

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  2. hi miss jessica! im real sorry youre feeling home sick. that not fun for sure. maybe when youre grown up and move at your own place you just cant get back that feeling but you could like doing a visit and remembering how nice it was when you were little. now where you live is your home sweet home cause you make it that way. just ask holly and she gonna say right where she is now is for sure her home sweet home.
    ...hugs from lenny

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  3. When my home burned, I lost that "home sweet home" feeling. So much was gone. And it forced me to go within.

    I realized that home is that sense of self we carry with us no matter where we roam. What we love, what we guide our decisions by is something we carry with us no matter where our steps take us.

    When my fiancee died, I also realized that sometimes home is not a place but a person.

    A person whose heart has accepted us into her own warm sense of self.

    I believe your own sense of self is strong so you will always carry home deep within you no matter where your journeys may take you.

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  4. Hello Jessica! I used to feel that way when I moved to the UK but now this is my home. It took awhile to get the 'home sweet home' feeling.

    I think Roland is right. Perhaps it's because I've got my husband with me, so even when I'm in a foreign country, I began to feel at home because I'm with him.

    Hope you feel better soon. Sorry you feel so 'home-sick.'

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  5. both "almost homes" sound divine... so you don't feel "home" in Athens? Hmmm.... what about one of the islands?

    I feel completely, 100 percent HOME at Seaside, Fla. Too bad I don't have One Hundred Million Dollars or I'd buy a house there.

    maybe we could split one~ ;p <3

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  6. Home is the place inside of your where memories rest.

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  7. I know that feeling all too well. Currently my house feels like my home though.

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  8. Well, those are great "homes" to have! Not bad!

    We move a lot, so I've learned a few tricks to always feel like home. One is using the same scented candles wherever we go. The smell of apple-cinnamon evokes home to me!

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  9. That would be difficult. I live in a home, and I love it. I love my Montana town, just a hop and a skip from Glacier National Park, and I love my home. :-)

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  10. Expat life has it's downside, that's for sure. I know exactly how you feel...and it only gets worse :( Your experiences enrich you and yet you don't match with the apples or the oranges anymore. I like pomegranates...want to be one of those with me? LOL.

    Seriously though, the online community gives me what I can't find here and family is really what grounds me.

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  11. Awww sweetie, I totally felt the pain here. I get what you mean. I don't live in a house - I have a half duplex that I rent. But I've lived there for about five years and it FINALLY feels like home. I admit, though, it isn't the place itself, it's the people who surround me. My husband, my stepdaughter and our puppies. Until they came into my life, I kind of felt like I was going "home" every time my I visited my dad.

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  12. Awww sweetie, I totally felt the pain here. I get what you mean. I don't live in a house - I have a half duplex that I rent. But I've lived there for about five years and it FINALLY feels like home. I admit, though, it isn't the place itself, it's the people who surround me. My husband, my stepdaughter and our puppies. Until they came into my life, I kind of felt like I was going "home" every time my I visited my dad.

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  13. I lived in the same area for a huge chunk of my life and thought of it as home. Then I moved to the eastern United States. After my first weekend, trip away. Coming back, I feel felt like I was coming home. I really don’t know what the difference it. It’s intangible. Perhaps it is just around the corner. And I mean that literally.

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  14. I get the same feeling sometimes. I feel the "home sweet home" feeling when I go home to the US and visit my parents. I think it's the family and people that make a home home.

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  15. That must be a situation. Home has an ambiguous meaning--it can mean the place and it can mean the heart. I find that as long as my family (mainly, my mom) is around, then I'm home.

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  16. I live in a home. It's the people around you that create that feeling, not the physical rooms. At least for me. Hope you find yours soon!

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  17. I live in a home. I think it's the people and atmosphere that you create that helps make it so.

    I can relate a little to how you feel. I was born in the US in Pennsylvania, raised in nearby New Jersey, but moved to Kentucky 6 years ago. The first is my birthplace, with family and memories of visits. The second is where I grew up (and yes, I actually miss the south Jersey accent, who knew?) and when I visit now, there's this familiarity that I cannot deny. And the third, KY, my newest home, I grow fonder of all the time. My immediate family is here, and so this is home.

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  18. I think some of us are just born to wander.

    I know when I've moved into my home, but within three to eighteen months, my ties with the place vanishes and I want to move on.

    Getting stuck in a place for a few months longer get to me.

    Still, I see it as my normal way of living and I cherish most of the memories made in any of my homes, but I never feel the need to return to it.

    :-)

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  19. Oh, I so feel this. I'm not sure where my home is either. In London, I still feel a bit of an outsider. But when I go to where I grew up, I don't feel like I belong there, either.

    The life of an expat!

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  20. Hi jessica. I didn't know anyone else felt quite like I do, but I'm hearing you. Some interesting comments, especially Roland's about his fiance. I live in Oz, but feel right at home in France and Italy, and if I could live anywhere I wanted, I'd probably move to country France then travel back to Oz when the mistral hit, ha ha. Opposite of what I'm doing now.
    Maybe this feeling is good. Not to be too settled in any one place? Too comfy? Who knows?

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  21. I used to live in Spain nearby to my youngest son and felt completely at home. I was there for three years and for personal reasons had to return to the UK.
    I go back to Spain to visit and to be perfectly honest feel more at home there than where I am now.
    So I suppose you could say I live in a "House"Home is where ther heart is.

    Thanks for your comments much appreciated.
    Yvonne.

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  22. I can relate. I lived in Africa and Europe for eight years, during which time I visited my native US only a couple times. I told myself I was a citizen of the world, but really I was homeless, nomadic, cut-off. These days, I live in Georgia where, you know, I...well...feel like...a fish on land. Still haven't found my home sweet home yet either. But my mother always says, "Home is where you hang your heart." (Pretty sure she saw that on a t-shirt somewhere...)

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  23. ah, Jessica, I can imagine how difficult it is for you living at our Balkans (I'm from Serbia) since our languages are so different from English. But at least you can enjoy our amazing food, music and friendly people always ready for a party :)

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