On Homesickness

[agincourtgirl]

It seems I only come back to LJ when I am in crisis; I wrote thispost this morning as I have had enough time and experience in London to recognize how out of place I feel most of the time, even though I have lived here for several years now. Just now I got a form rejection email from Oxfam, a place I have been a volunteer at for nearly 5 years -

Comments

[belle_marmotte]

Hi, I read your other entry too, but thought I'd post here rather than in your personal journal.
You are not alone in your feelings about London. I've even known Brits from other parts of the country who moved there usually for work and then, years later, drifted back or elsewhere because they had had enough of it. On the other hand I have a close relative who grew up in a small village who loves it there precisely because of its coldness and anonymity. She's pretty much cut off from all her wider family and sees London as the ideal place to disappear. Mental health-wise she's a mess (by her own admission) and I've seen her get progressively worse in the 20 years she has been there, but I know she won't ever leave.

I was born and spent the early years of my life near to London, but then moved with my family to where my mother is from in the Lake District which, to be quite honest, is equally unfriendly and cliquish, just in a different way. It's a place that goes against the general rule in England that Northerners are more friendly than Southerners. Not to denigrate my home country citizens, but I'm not convinced British people are that welcoming to outsiders. Hopefully some US expats here will correct me with some heartwarming stories of how welcome they were made to feel!

Now I'm in the Midwest and the friendliness of people towards me has taken some getting used to, although I haven't made close friends on a par with those I left back in the UK, (health issues mean I can't get out much independently), it still astonishes me how open people are here to inviting new people into existing friendship groups (a rarity indeed back 'home'). My homesickness is virtually non-existent now and I've only been here for 3 years.

Here's a bit of irony for you: I was recently approached by someone asking me if I could socialize with his British wife because she is gets horribly homesick, despite living here for almost a decade and he thought having a fellow Brit to hang out with might take the edge off. I've met her before socially in a group situation and all she did was complain about life in the US, so I spent most of my time trying to avoid her. The kicker to this being that she is from London!

It sounds like you've had a rough time of things and the employment situation isn't helping any either. I hope you can find your own niche within the place. It doesn't have to be knitting, if that's not your thing! Are their any local libraries where you could utilize your book knowledge and perhaps you could do volunteer work if they didn't have any openings for employment?

[agincourtgirl]

London isn't the place I first got to know in 1988 when I visited for nearly a month; it's not even how it was when I got engaged here in 2006! And it is a difficult place to make friends. The Midwest sounds a lot more like home to me and ironically I can feel for the Londoner who feels she is stuck out there and probably hates the long winters, too.

I could volunteer at the library I suppose, I have no idea - I never see any volunteers there, really. I have been at the Oxfam I'm volunteering at now for two years and have learned all I can learn and am restless for something new - something beyond books.

I've never been to the Lake District but I'd suspect it would be like that, I wonder what areas of the UK are friendly? I've been to Glasgow a few times and like it, is there anywhere else?