feeling very homesick and lonely today...

[LostInAusNation]

We're in Australia. I want to pick up the phone and talk to my best friend and my aunt n tell them I am so sad and lonely today but I can't cos it's 5am at home and it wouldn't be fair to whinge to them when they were worried about us going anyway. Been here almost 3 months. I thought it would still be the honeymoon phase now...

[wellieboots]

where are you OP? I'm in Sydney. Been here almost 3 yrs and can still empathise with homesickness! 3 months in I think I cried at least a couple of times a week Take care and chat here if it helps, there are a number of Aussie MNers, you might even manage a meetup!

[chloeb2002]

Lostinaus.. It will get better :0) try and get "stuck into" something new...ideas.. Dream house shopping. .. Learn to surf.. Take the kids out .. Her ready for school, .. It's a hard time to build new relationships when the country stops for summer.
3 months is about average for the " gloss" to come off. The nitty gritty to set in.. It's hard. No longer a holiday.. Bills and real life set in! Hopefully some Victorians will be along soon to offer local suggestions..

[LostInAusNation]

Thanks. Good to know the 3 months thing is relatively normal. It just makes it a bit more bearable when you talk to people who have been there. I don't wanna mention it to anyone back home really cos it just upsets them and they say "You can always come back home..." which I know I really can't as I have to hang in there and give it a try.

[casperthefriendlyghost]

I moved to Jordan with my family at the end of August and it was only around the end of November that I started to feel a little less 'lost'. We did however go home for Christmas and are now back in Jordan and I have read that with the whole 'culture shock' this is par for the course. I have also read that it can affect everyone differently so there is no right or wrong about how you are feeling. Personally I loved being back in the UK over Christmas, but I do wonder if it was the right thing to do as I'm now back feeling as if I can't wait for the next couple of years to fly by! I'm not so homesick this time around, but I definitely feel as if I'm waiting for time to pass rather than enjoying the here and now. Interestingly a colleague told me she hated Jordan for the first 10 years that she was here... She loves it now and would never go 'home' as it were. I can't see me hanging in there for that long though!

[echt]

Sorry you're sad, OP.

When I first came here, nearly eight years ago, I used to cry in the evenings, for several months. It's very early days, and very natural to feel the pangs so much. It was the trees that did my head in. So alien. I couldn't read them. A pom acquaintance said it's the first ten years that are the worst.:o

Things got a lot better when I got a job, so ready-made company on a day-to-day basis. Your children are pre-school, but my DD was much older, so I'm stumped about that age group. chloeb's advice about deliberately getting stuck into something seems good. The Nike approach: just do it.

Not to be stalker-y, but where do you live in Melbourne? If you'd rather not get too precise, the city, e.g. Kingston might give other MNers a better clue as to some practical things to do. Savoycabbage might be along with some good ideas involving younger children.

Happ(ier) New Year.

[kiwidreamer]

Huge hugs, not sure if it's reassuring but as a Kiwi new to the UK many many years ago I was desperately homesick for months and months, I would cry my heart out every night as I got off the train at Acton and walk home... desperately sad that I'd have to do it all again tomorrow! To be honest the first year was very very hard but when I got a good job with the ready made company echt and something new to learn and focus on then things rapidly improved.

I guess my advice is to accept it, it's natural and normal, you've turned your life upside down afterall but try and keep some momentum in moving your new life forward every day... baby steps... and if it helps to stream Radio 1 / 2 --even possibly Radio 4 if you are desperate-- then do it but if it has you choking back tears then perhaps not ;)

[kiwidreamer]

DH, then BF, used to say we'd probably want stay (in the UK) about 5yrs and I would laugh --hollowly and manically-- and say not on your life. We are coming up to our 12th year come Feb, so I'm living proof early homesickness does abate / become manageable.