I'm homesick, but couldn't really go back home to where I'm from. Anyone else?

[Longingforthepast]

As the years have passed, I really miss the place I'm from. But have no family there anymore, and things will have changed a lot over the past decade/ 15 years.

The mad thing is I couldn't really live there anyway! I moved for jobs and various opportunities. And because (at the time) although very fond of the place in one way, didn't feel like I was a great fit for the lifestyle there.

But I feel so nostalgic and wish I could go back, when family members were still alive and I sort of took for granted id always be welcome

I feel so sad today. Even though I also love the country I live in now!

Does anyone else have a bit of a complicated relationship with the place they grew up? Where you have mixed feelings?

I'm wondering if part of it is, although i have a good many friends there (pre covid I saw them when I visited) a lot of people were very dismissive of me and looked down their nose at me too. As a socially awkward teen, part of me was so restless to get away but always thought I could come home whenever i wanted.

I completely relate to this!
I'm often incredibly homesick for the area of the UK where I grew up but I have no one there now.

I've spent my adult life something else that I dislike. My children have picked up on my attitude, which is sad as they don't like the area either but I can't lie to them and there are worse places.

I don't fit in in either home area or here.

I keep thinking about moving to somewhere else when my children fly the nest. But I don't know where...

Yes I can definately relate. I'm not sure what the answer is. I want to be where I grew up because I feel safe and rooted there. But I left 20 years ago and have no family there now.

Glitterbiscuits, that sounds hard. I know you say you're not sure where you might go once your kids leave home, but is there any place (or places!) you are curious about trying?

Or you could throw a dart at a map

I want to be where I grew up because I feel safe and rooted there. But I left 20 years ago and have no family there now.

I know how this feels, in a way. But I did go through a rough patch after multiple bereavements where I felt safe nowhere really, including where I grew up. Everywhere felt so hostile.

I remember sobbing with my friend that I just wanted to feel safe.

Am glad I feel safe kind of anywhere now, but it was brutal.

I massively get this. I consider myself as having two homes now but neither is 100% me if that makes sense. When I’m home I’m shouted at for “being British” and here I will never be anything but the “Scandi one”. I’m not allowed an opinion back home because I left it and I’m not really allowed one here either because I’m not native, am I.

I digress a bit but yes I get it. I feel like I don’t belong, period. And I am massively homesick for both .... which makes absolutely no sense. 😂

And I am massively homesick for both .... which makes absolutely no sense.

Yes! This! Makes perfect sense to me though

Yes, I share similar emotions about where I grew up. However I dont yearn for a return to the days when I lived there or when beloved family members were alive there. My life then included a lot of emotional upheaval (in picturesque surroundings!). On the one hand, it’s become very well-known in the past twenty-odd years since I left (which has impacted the city’s culture in various ways) and DH and I briefly fantasized about retiring there, but I can’t currently envision returning. My family’s dynamic has changed (again), I have changed as a person.... ugh it would be messy.

I'm hugely emotionally attached to where I grew up and have family there. However, I've moved many times and always end up with new friendship groups, pursuits and attachments. Friends from former locals visit or we meet up between our homes. The excitement of 'starting again' provides a lot of new energy, with new places to visit on days out and to try new things. I love where I live now.

So, the only way it works for me is to have lots of visits back 'home'. However, if I hated where I lived now I'd move again - not sure it would be 'back home'.

My place that I'm homesick for is less than 10 miles away, but it's a different place and a different time.

Yes I can really relate to this.
I was moved to another part of the country growing up, then back again in my late teens. I loved it where I grew up and long to go back, but I know that life doesn't exist anymore and everyone's moved on. I hate where I am now, but don't know where to go. I feel lost and rootless.

I can relate.

Last time I visited the town where I grew up, I found it very difficult emotionally, so whilst I don’t long to be there, it sits in a strange place.

I am less familiar with the local faces, and naturally the buildings and shops have changed too so whilst it’s SO familiar, it’s not mine anymore. I’ve lost family members and other relationships are strained. Plus I’m reminded of feeling inadequate and insecure, and possibly depressed, whenever I go there.

We are very happy living where we live now, and I feel “free” by living away, but I don’t know that we could be here forever. We are foreigners here, and obviously always will be. We are making roots here for our children, but that feels strange too. They are good roots but they are not ones that I relate too as it’s very different from my childhood.

If we move back to the UK, which is not on the cards any time soon, we would go back to my “hometown” because it would be totally random to go anywhere else... but the longer we live away, the more unfamiliar it feels.

Yes, this is so me. I was just thinking about this today.
Many years in the UK, came here as a child with my parents. I feel at home everywhere, yet nowhere. When I'm here I miss over there, when I'm over there I miss here. I've never felt like I truly belonged anywhere, except in my home country as a child, and especially in my neighbourhood where 3 generations of my family had lived. Now there's no one left there, they've all either moved away or died. And even if I was to move there tomorrow I know I'd hate it. It's a poor part of the city and I've "moved up" in life. Once you move up you can't really go back, and the neighbourhood has changed a lot too.
But I often wish I could go back in time, to re-live even just one day and to take time to appreciate what I had.

I know that this isn't a healthy way to think though. You've got to look forward, not back. I've realised that for me home will never be a physical place...so I've found a "home" through sporting hobbies and an international community of like-minded people. Also through books...I read a lot about topics that interest me.
I actually love where I live right now and once I took the pressure off myself to make it "home" and "belong", I started to really enjoy it.

I hope you manage to find your own way to feel better about it all. If it's any consolation, there are loads of us out there that feel like this. Check out the book East of the West. It's a series of short stories on this very topic. Also, Street Without a Name. (You can probably guess my country now).

Sorry to here that, but it sounds like you are home sick for a time rather than a place.

I regularly go for an hours drive to the village where I lived and even take pics of our. house...it is perfectly normal to feel nostalgic !! Also the best years of my life were spent in Sydney over 30 years ago and I yearn to go there again and follow in my younger footsteps 💕💕

Yes. I sometimes feel homesick for my home town in England, which I left getting on for 40 years ago now. I go back occasionally to see family, hoping it'll be as I want to remember it, and it just isn't and can't possibly be because so much time has passed. I'm always so excited to get there, but after a couple of days just want to get away again. I don't belong there any more, except in my memories.

I love where I live now, in another European country, I'm happy and settled, but I know that I'll never completely fit in and belong because I wasn't brought up here. I've been here 20 years, it's DH's home country and our DC have grown up here. It's me that will always be the outsider.

As tttigress said, I think it's a time, not a place. Although I've been happy to live in many places and in many different countries, part of me envies my childhood friends who have always lived and still live where we grew up. But if I were to go back there to live now, I know I would feel out of place, and it wouldn't be the place I remember. I do visit from time to time, and while it feels wonderfully familiar, part of me is always irritated that it doesn't function as well as many of the other places I have lived since.

As another example: I have a friend who was born in East Berlin. She still lives in that part of Berlin but of course geopolitics mean the country she was born in no longer exists. She is immensely nostalgic for East Germany, but if you think about it, she may just be immensely nostalgic for her youth, as we all are.

I think it's a very normal feeling, OP. It's something that immigrants get most of all, but it applies to an awful lot of people in a lesser way. Because so many people leave their place of origin. And that place will always be a part of you. But, as you say, it doesn't exist any more and we do need to move forward and live in the world that actually exists. But that doesn't mean we don't take a wistful look back sometimes.

Yes I feel like that too. Especially at the moment, when I haven’t been able to visit my home area (in the UK) for ages, due to COVID.

Rationally I know I wouldn’t really want to move back there. But I still miss it 😢

I do miss some things (food, weather) but nothing a visit cant fix. I dont think I could move back there. Actually, I cant, unless I find an employer sponsor there... because I've lost my home citizenship.

I can relate to this identity wilderness and rootlessness... i am happy and blessed to have my own little family and I love the UK for all its flaws, but I keep searching for a house to move to next... over and over. I havent yet found my community in where I live, or formed close friendships, even if I'm not short of acquaintances.

Yup. Immigrant family. I no longer remember living where we came from. Lots of memories of visits and very long stays. And that's how it is now: nice to visit, but I recognise that I'm no longer really a native any more.

I grew up in Manchester now in North Wales. My mum and dad still live in the house I grew up in. I love to go home, my son sleeps in my old room if he stays with his grandparents. My Aunt and Uncle still visit on Tuesdays at 7pm when not in lockdown. I realise how lucky and stable my life has been and think it makes it easier to leave in some ways....having secure and stable roots.

I often think you can feel homesick for a time (that's obviously past), rather than the actual place itself?

The place will have changed out of all recognition, the people may be gone, so the draw isn't to something that's actually still available, iyswim

Yes! My parents are from two different places and I don’t feel like I know either or being in either
Now my family have left where I grew up, I feel like I have no base
No where to ever ‘return’ to
But even before they moved I didn’t fit in there, I hadn’t lived there for any of my adult life

I’ve moved around so much no where is ‘home’ I’m not attached to anywhere, my accent is a weird mix and I know lots of places but non of them really well.
The culture is different and I don’t have that shared experience or knowledge the locals around me seem to have

I get it. I can’t afford to live in the same town as my parents anymore, and even if I could, I’m not sure if I’d feel happy there. But I do feel like I weirdly gravitate towards the place. I feel at home when I drive around those streets. I know who lives or used to live in certain houses and I have connection and memories. In my current place, I feel really rootless. It’s an odd feeling.