Home, yearning and comfort

A friend of mine is in desparate need of some comfort words on dealing with that "pit-of-my-stomach feeling of longing for home and longing for family after the holidays". Well I certainly can't offer any advice, but plenty of empathy.

The only comfort words I have to offer are: you are not alone. We chose to be independent and take advantage of all the world has to offer. Often times this leads us to leave our families in search of adventure, career, fulfilment, opportunity, even love. I think it is one of the mixed blessings of the progress in this world. We have many more opportunities but also much more complex lives and social networks... like a menu that is almost too long that it's harder to decide what you want. But image the longing we would feel if we'd never left... never taken that chance and followed that path... I can only imagine that then too something would feel incomplete.

Our families are who define us, we each have such fundamental roles in our families. I learned to be a daughter and a sister before anything else in my life. Those roles are comfortable and long-standing. There is no place that I feel more "myself" and more real than when I am with my family. It's a lot harder to adapt to the new roles of "employee" or "wife" or "friend" to people who have much more important and demanding things in their lives than me, their kids! The friends I grew up with were people I saw everyday - my sisters or friends at school. So these new roles are not as comfortable and take some time to get used to.

I think our longing or lump in the throat feeling is a "mission accomplished" and a tribute to our parents that we care about our families. I was listening to the radio in my car a few months back and heard a story about a man who's goal in life was to have a family that liked each other well enough that they would want to get together even after he was gone - that's kinda cool. Just think about how many families out there only talk a few times a year or have fights that have isolated people that don't speak for years. I can't imagine that pain.

My mother-in-law has a similar struggle. Her husband, children & grand-children are here, but her sisters are in Minnesota. She understands my feelings. I think the more complex our lives become, the more places and groups we belong with, the more that no single place or group will ever be our "everything". But instead we are blessed with many places to have connections and people who care about us. Of course this doesn't always help!

I have no easy solution. I have tried to stopped calling home when they are all together and I'm not. I try to always have a trip planned to look forward to when I will see my family next. Sometimes I think about moving back to Ohio. But I know that wouldn't solve all the problems because now part of me belongs in Arizona. This sums up my conflict: I want to be with them but I don't want to be there. If only they would all move here then life would be perfect (but then AZ may have a population problem)!

Sending out a big hug to KDOG in Colorado and anyone else suffering the post-holiday family withdrawls!