Homesick, but not for a place

When it's time to move into the new life waiting for you.

Most of the difficult things we face in life result in learning experiences, and what many of us are learning is that our home is not in some place or in anything outside of us; it is within our own precious hearts.

Yes, your heart is precious. Do not let any shame story tell you any different.

Once we learn this lesson, which is one of embodied self-love, we can show others the way back home to their hearts.

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The world is changing fast. So much of it is out of our control. These changes shake loose the things we’ve outgrown but cling to like old blankets. Things that once felt like home, yet we know we can’t go back there.

For this reason, I am convinced that true freedom is on the other side of this shaking loose, but so is homesickness.

Do you ever feel like you know you need to go somewhere, like it is time to move from where you have always been, but the fear of letting go of everything you have always known keeps you stuck?

It would be better if we could take what matters with us and carry our homes like a hermit crab. I think we can, but this would mean redefining what matters and packing light.

That redefining of what matters happens by walking through the fires of loss created by change.

I attended a group coaching session a few weeks ago led by a powerful woman in my life, who initiated it to empower other women. It is a space for those who are awakening to their creative dreams, but who need help moving the blocks they have placed on themselves, often in agreement with the ones societal conditioning imposes on us.

I was reminded that these blocks from the outside don’t work unless there is some internal agreement with the block. For example, it hurts not to be seen or chosen by another, but it hurts more not to be seen or chosen by another when we forget to see or choose ourselves.

When we see and choose ourselves, like really see how beautiful he/she is and choose him/her, it doesn’t matter so much when that person opposite you can’t see you.

You will realize one day that they can’t see you because they can’t see themselves.

In choosing, seeing and loving the beautiful soul that we are, we can begin to remove the roadblocks that keep our moving van from heading down that new road to higher ground.

A woman in the coaching group knew what she needed to do to move into a new kind of freedom, but she was so afraid to let go of an old behavior that caused her to cling to people and places that she had outgrown, or rather, who had outgrown her.

It reminded me of a kind of homesickness we all feel, for the old ways we have always existed are dying. Nothing seems to be working, so it is falling apart. But some part of us that exists closer to the truth of things knows that it needs to fall away.

In this way, we are outgrowing the figurative homes we were raised in. When we leave that home, we know it is time to go. We even look forward to the adventure ahead. However, we still shed tears as we say goodbye to the “home” we have always known.

Think of it like a hermit crab releasing its little shell in search of a new one. It carries his home on his back, but it doesn’t fit anymore. He needs a new shell, or he will die. His survival depends on finding a new home.

And there is a brief time that the hermit crab exists in the world without the shell it used to live in while it looks for another one. I bet he feels pretty raw and vulnerable.

I also imagine he has a voice and shoes like Marcel the Shell, but that is neither here nor there.

The coach asked the woman what was keeping her from accepting her new role as a newly divorced woman and mother of grown children. She couldn’t put her finger on it for a moment. Until clarity struck — it was because she was used to always worrying about losing the things she loves in her life if she relinquished control. She was used to creating the illusion of control through that worry. What would happen if she stopped worrying as if she were still a mother to small children, or still with a man who was no longer around? What if she started to trust that everything will work out as it is supposed to, and that there are some things out of her control now?

Then I realized what she was feeling is the anxiety we must all feel when we move out of our childhood homes (familiar spaces, relationships, jobs, habits, etc.), even if the dynamics in that home were not good for us. This is a figure of speech, but it paints a vivid picture of what we feel when we let go of old behaviors, shedding versions of ourselves that no longer serve the life we are growing into.

And as we do this individually, we are doing this collectively, and as we do this collectively, we are creating a new world we want to exist in. On a macroscopic level, the old world we are all used to is being left behind. Can you feel it? I can. The Earth is shaking.

We are all homesick, but not for a place. I trust that where we are going is more beautiful than anything we could imagine, because what we can imagine is limited to past experiences, but the road to get there will be quite bumpy.

It makes me wonder if, while the caterpillar’s body is molting to make way for wings, it misses its life on the leaf? I think so. Because it was all she knew up to that point.

We are all always both losing and becoming, ending and starting over, beginning and ending.

When chains fall away, we can still sometimes miss their familiarity.

When an unkind relationship ends, the silence it leaves behind can be haunting.

When the organization was unjust, we may still grieve the life we built inside it.

I am homesick, but not for a place. I am homesick for the financial security I experienced as a full-time journalism instructor at the college whose department director never respected my humanity, both inside and outside the office, nor my sovereignty. I am homesick for the magazine I dreamt to life and managed as an executive editor whose owner’s values of transparency and honesty didn’t align with mine. I am homesick for the arms of my former lovers, who never could practice honesty or honor my needs and feelings. I am homesick for the government and country that raised me, yet treated me like a commodity.

But I am so proud of the courage it took to walk away from all of these things, to leave those tight-fitting shells in the past in search of a new shell, and to be willing to be naked for a time, knowing that this home I am walking toward is different and more expansive than anywhere I have existed before. I know this because I have already started moving in. The dawn of my dream life is here.

So trust your beautiful heart to find a new shell that allows you to climb bigger sandhills, swim in deeper oceans, and maybe, just maybe, this new shell has wings.

I speculate you, too, are outgrowing some spaces you once lived in.

Like the hermit crab, we get to grow into a bigger home, but we get to pack lighter as we gain experience and wisdom for what must be left behind and grow into our bigger hearts.

I’ll never forget this quote from a philosophy text I read in college, but I can’t find or remember who said it: Suffering, grief and loss create places in your heart that didn’t exist before. These places are later filled with love.

And for a time, we will feel really vulnerable in the transition. Naked in liminal spaces.

Grief and freedom can walk hand in hand. Honor the grief. But follow the freedom.

Jocelyn is a journalist, editor and founder of the storytelling platform Narrative Moth[er], where she collects stories from writing circles as a form of healing, connection and advocacy.