There Is Something Deeply Healing About Returning Home. But it’s 15 Hours Away…
I recently came across a quote - it talked about returning to the land that holds your roots. Walking the streets where your story began. Revisiting the neighborhood that first held you. Standing in the places where your body somehow remembers who you are.
And I immediately felt sadness because I miss home.
Not necessarily a house. Not even just a country. I miss the feeling of home. The version of me that existed there. The familiarity of knowing every corner, every smell, every shortcut, every little thing that made up my world before life became so complicated.
The problem is that what I used to call home is now about fifteen hours away. Before becoming a parent, fifteen hours felt long but manageable. Now? Fifteen hours feels like preparing for an international military operation.
Suddenly a simple trip involves:
- Coordinating school schedules
- Taking time off work
- Budgeting for expensive flights
- Packing for children
- Preparing snacks for approximately seventeen years worth of travel time
- Worrying about sleep schedules, illnesses, and routines
- Mentally preparing for airport chaos
Travel used to feel exciting. Now it feels like project management with luggage. And somewhere along the way, going home became harder than I expected. Not because I do not want to go - because I want to go desperately.
That is what makes it difficult.
The Guilt Nobody Talks About
There is also a type of guilt that comes with living far from your parents, especially when they live abroad. I do not think people talk enough about that feeling.
There is guilt over:
- Missed birthdays
- Missed holidays
- Ordinary weekends
- Quick coffee visits that never happen
- Grandparents missing everyday moments with grandchildren (who, in some cases, do not speak their language)
- Watching parents grow older from far away
It is not always the big milestones that hurt. Sometimes it is the ordinary moments. I find myself thinking about simple things that would happen naturally if we lived closer.
- Stopping by for dinner.
- A random Tuesday visit.
- Running errands together.
- Sitting around a kitchen table talking about absolutely nothing important.
The kind of moments nobody photographs because they seem small at the time, but later you realize they were actually everything.
Motherhood Changed My Perspective
The strange thing is that becoming a parent somehow made this feeling stronger. Before having children, I missed my parents. After becoming a parent, I understood them. Because now I understand what it feels like to miss your child.
I understand sacrifice differently. I understand how quickly time disappears. One minute your children are tiny. The next minute entire school years have gone by. Then somehow years pass and you wonder where they went.
Now when I think about my parents living far away, I see things through completely different eyes. And maybe that is part of why the guilt feels heavier.
Home Does Not Fully Leave You
Technology helps - we have FaceTime, photos, text messages, video calls.
But none of it replaces being there. None of it replaces hearing familiar sounds, smelling familiar food, or walking through places your brain somehow still recognizes years later. I think there really is something healing about returning to where your story started.
Maybe our bodies really do remember. Maybe places carry pieces of us. Maybe home never fully leaves us even after years away. And maybe what I keep calling guilt is actually something else.
Maybe it is love. Love stretched across countries. Love stretched across oceans. Love stretched across fifteen long hours.
Still waiting patiently for the next trip home.
