Feeling Homesick

I am feeling homesick. And it is not because I moved countries 10 months ago or because I miss my country of birth. No, I am homesick for the life I had before lockdown.

Psychologist Josh Klapow has defined homesickness as the “instinctive need for love, protection, and security – feelings and qualities usually associated with home.”

Moving somewhere new and being stripped of all the things that make up our normal lives can leave us feeling isolated and exposed. But it is not necessarily about missing ‘home’, but about not feeling comfortable about where you are right now. I feel I have lost the routine and belonging I so carefully started constructing when we arrived in August this year.

Homesickness is about a period of adjustment, remarkably like what we are going through during these uncertain times of lockdown.