home is where the heart is

Yesterday was the 4 month “anniversary” of me landing in England.

The most popular question I get, besides “where are you from in America?” is, “Do you miss home?”

I never really knew how to answer that question, because it’s more complicated than just “missing home”

Most people automatically assume that I must be sobbing myself to sleep over not seeing my family all the time and I must miss my friends, and of course I do. I miss my family just as much as the next person who is in a different country. I miss calling my best friend at 3am when I’m drunk and upset. I missed being home for Christmas, bickering with my siblings over which movie to watch and which board game to play. I miss coming home and having the most delicious soup made with love by my mother, I miss my dogs and my grumpy cat.

But that’s what people want to hear when they ask that question. They want to hear that I’m missing my family, friends and my pets.

With technology these days I have been given the amazing chance to Skype with people who are over 4000 miles away. I can see my Mom whenever I want and I can talk to my best friend if I want to over messenger. I don’t need to wait for a letter to get to them 3 weeks after I sent it and then wait again, for a reply. So, with modern technology, I miss my family and friends a great amount, but much less than people assume. If I was going weeks at a time without talking to them, I would probably miss them way more, but in all honestly, it hardly feels any different from being in Canada.

Now, I do not want anyone to get the impression that I don’t miss my family and friends like crazy, but there is another part of Canada that I miss a great deal.

Before I came to England I lived in the beautiful town of Jasper. I lived there for about 8 months, collectively a year if I count the summer before that. I had already had the chance to detach myself from my family. I was already given the opportunity to know what it’s like to not be able to see your friends every day. On top of that, if you know me, you know that I absolutely loved Jasper. The entire town is a dream for me. I loved my two jobs, I had incredible friends, I was absolutely comfortable there and even after my first Summer there, I thought of it as a second home.

I never knew that it was possible to miss a place as much as I miss Jasper, and boy, do I miss it. I miss it because I can’t Skype the mountains. I can’t walk in the park through the laptop and I can’t breathe in the air through the phone.

It’s hard to say that to people when they ask if I miss home, because home has become two separate places. Home is one with my mother, my pets and a bed that I have slept in for many years. but home is also Jasper, with mountains and incredible memories and if I am completely honest, I miss Jasper the most.

I miss the way the mountains made me feel secure, like I was always being hugged by the planet, I always felt safe. The way the multitude of trees created so much oxygen, and after a snow or rainfall it smells amazing, because it was the cleanest air you could ever find. I missed how the sun looked on the mountains at exactly 10:25pm during the peak months of the summer. They turned a beautiful golden-yellow with the most amazing streaks of orange and how they made the whole sky turn a bright pink. Those mountains made me feel emotions, they made me think, and they made me honest, which is more than I can say for some people in my life. Being unable to take part in activities I did on a daily basis in Jasper makes me incredibly nostalgic for that little mountain town. My daily sandwich from the deli and coffee from Snowdome has been replaced with nothing. No similar routine was put in place of what I had. Sure, I am working, and I still eat sandwiches and drink coffee, but something you love can never really be replaced.

So, I do miss my family, but I can talk to them.

I can’t talk to the mountains.

Saying all of that, I have almost managed to get to that spot of comfort and familiarity with England. I have managed to find things that I love just as much as the mountains, if not more. I am getting more and more comfortable, and England is feeling more like home. When I see the news on my Facebook changing from the currents on British Columbia to the latest news in the royal family, it doesn’t bother me as much. Not being able to find cheese curds has become something that I have accepted, even though I still consider it blasphemy (yes, cheese curds are a sacred part of my life). I have stopped noticing that the plug-ins are different, and I have stopped converting the price of pounds into dollars just to freak out about how expensive it would be at that price back home. Also I never feel like I am going to be hit by a car any more because I have become used to looking left first instead of right.

That all may be because I have been very lucky and I have been put in a job with a girl who is now one of my closest friends, I have had support from my family, and I have been placed in two great jobs where the locals did everything to make sure that I was comfortable. I have been very lucky, and very blessed to be in such a comfortable position and to feel so at home in a country that is completely foreign.

it’s never too late to miss home, but it’s never too early to love somewhere new.