Homesick

I haven’t had a good late night/early morning blog vent in awhile!

For the first time in the six months that I packed up & ran away, I’m actually homesick. Not even just a little homesick. Like I want to call someone at home & cry like a little kid at summer camp homesick.

I love my new home. I love that I’m surrounded by nature. I love my gym. I love the air & I love the city. But the more I invest in my writing again, the more my professional dissatisfaction at my regular job grows because I want to be writing full time. It was easy to love my johnny punch clock job when I wasn’t writing. But now that I’m in the field again, I’m growing more and more restless, because I want to be working in my field full time. I want to be on the front lines when things happen & ask questions & bring people news. I want so badly to write something that makes a difference in someone’s life & resonates with them & makes them think & grow. I have a talent & I want to use it to impact the world in a positive way. But then I feel guilty because I should be thankful that I have a job. After all, the unemployment rate is skyrocketing & I’m fortunate enough to have a job & I should be grateful, right? But truthfully, my job is a very fine job. They pay me well. They are good to me. But I think about how I wanted to bring people news that would make them think & ask questions & better their communities. Or I’d help people think so they’d become their best selves & happy. And I get so sad because I do none of those things. I sell people high priced luxury items. But I don’t want to be the person who’s aggressively selling phones to the waitress at dinner or all we talk about are how we’re going to sell more phones. I want a career that’s meaningful, that I’m proud of, where I make a difference in someone’s world, anyone’s. And I’m not doing that.

Also, the girls are getting bullied at their school. The angriest teen wants to go back to her friends. And I don’t blame her, because sometimes I’m lonely too. I miss my friends, who are like family to me. With the exception of one coworker & a couple of old classmates, I haven’t made a lot of friends yet & I find myself missing my Windsor people so. I feel like I spend a lot of time telling people that I miss them, mostly because I kind of hope that they miss me too & I just kind of want to hear it. That might sound stupid, but when you’re lonely, sometimes it’s nice to hear that someone wishes you were with them. It makes you feel like you’re important, that you matter. I’m a social person & I love company & I don’t have any. I spend most of my time alone & it’s kind of lonely. I used to pretend it didn’t bother me, because I was so bad ass, but sometimes I wish I could just call up someone for a last minute coffee after work. I love living alone. I love having my independence, but I miss my friends from home more than I’ve cared to admit & some nights I find myself missing my familiar skyline, the one I looked at every night for 13 years & meant home.

But I know “going home” isn’t really an option, despite my friend Amanda telling me it’s a really great idea. Yes, I have friends, but the root issues are still the same, which is a lack of strong career prospects in my field, which is my only real dream. The punch clock job was supposed to be temporary until I found a media job. But then I stopped looking until I started at Cineklik & the excitement of working in my field as well as the support from those who know me best made me miss it all, more than I should. I just sometimes feel on an island alone with the girls. All of the people I love the most are hours away in Sarnia or Windsor & all of the places hiring in my field are hours away in the other direction in Toronto. And I’m in the middle, feeling very removed & alone.

I hate to sound so negative, because running away was a really good plan, because I’ve learned so much so far. I’ve learned I can put myself in an unfamiliar situation & I can thrive. I learned that I can be on my own & I can handle stuff without anyone’s help, everything from dental surgery to getting lost & everything in between. All of these things have made me even more bad ass than I was before, because I can adapt to new & different situations better than I did before. There are so many good things that have come from this experience & I need to focus on all of them & not how not everything has gone perfectly.

Truthfully though, it’s not the city I miss; it’s Saturday breakfasts with the legal assistant ladies. It’s going to dusty old bookstores with my favourite person in the world & last minute adventures with Rena & Amanda to 8 mile. It’s the people I miss & I miss them so. But I also know that part of life’s journey means being separated from our loved ones sometimes. I’ve learned which friendships will prevail through periods of absence & which won’t. I’ve learned that some affection can withstand ages apart, and once put back together, it can be wonderful. And I learned that I can survive on my own, which is a lesson I lose sight of when I do get homesick & just want to hear a friend’s voice or see their face because it’s comforting & makes me feel happy.

Tomorrow I’ll feel better & I’ll make it a better day. Tomorrow I’ll focus on finding something to enjoy about where I live now. And I’ll remind myself that it’s okay to feel lonely, or sad. Not everything needs to be pretty or perfect all of the time. As long as you make an effort to make the next day a better one.