Sehnsucht: Where The Heart Is
So wake me up when it's all over
When I'm wiser and I'm older
All this time I was finding myself and I
Didn't know I was lost
There needs to be a word for being homesick for the place you've never lived, but fell in love with when you went there. I experience this feeling often. I think the closest term is wanderlust, but I think that's more about seeing new places, not about going to the place where a small part of your heart lives. Whenever friends travel to those places, or I talk about them, a part of me comes alive in anticipation of going there again. A friend of mine is in Israel right now, another friend recently went down to New York, and I found out one of Paul's uncles is from the Maritimes. Someone I met recently was talking about Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, too. All of these places are extremely special to me. In each place, I fell in love with the land, the people, the atmosphere.
My friend Jadon tells me that the German word Sehnsucht is probably the closest thing to what I am talking about. The wikipedia article on the word tells me that "Sehnsucht represents thoughts and feelings about all facets of life that are unfinished or imperfect, paired with a yearning for ideal alternative experiences. It has been referred to as “life’s longings”; or an individual’s search for happiness while coping with the reality of unattainable wishes."
One of the hardest things about being financially handcuffed to a large debt is the lack of travel. Travelling has been a part of my identity ever since I can remember. I've yearned to go places, stretched my head out to look beyond the place I grew up ever since I had a chance.
I was just telling Paul that wistfulness is my favourite emotion. Perhaps I ought to be grateful that the circumstances of my life allow me to feel it often, I suppose.
Right now I feel longing on so many fronts, but I feel like I'm dealing with it well.
I long for a different home, but spend my time making this one more habitable. I just picked up a rather nice $30 cabinet that's the perfect size to fit in a corner and double our kitchen storage space. Doing things like this fill me with elation. If only doing dishes did the same...
I long to give people advice, and I've started frequenting an online community that allows me to do that anonymously. It gives me a rush. I'm hoping to expand Last Resort to fill that hole in my life eventually, but for now, I have an outlet.
I've been going through a really tough time when it comes to confronting all the ways I haven't been kind to my future self, even when I thought that was exactly what I was doing. It's been a painful process of change for years now, and even so, some of the things I really want to tackle have been the slowest of all.
But longing is a powerful emotion, and if you're paying attention to what it tells you, maybe you can get somewhere eventually.