So you've moved to a new city, province, or country? This can be a relatively common and relatable experience in many adults' lives. This can be challenging in numerous ways though, as listed in my blog about 'Moving to a New Place.' What people don't discuss as much is about 'coming back home'. What or where is home? If you're someone who has been brave, who has said yes to new opportunity - with a new job or academic program afar, or simply on the pursuit of adventure - you find yourself making more than one home in your life.
In these homes you have found new friends and community that helped you feel comfortable, safe, and hopefully flourish. What if you have done this more than one time? You may find yourself with dear friends scattered across moments of your life. You may miss them dearly. Looking back, it can feel like artifacts of your life. It is easy to feel nostalgic for these moments in time.
What if you are fortunate enough to have the opportunity to visit them again since moving? With this experience, it's easy to feel love and longing mixed with disorientation, sadness, grief and confusion. Thoughts of wondering if you made the right decision, and if it's worth being so far from loved ones may run through your mind. The thing about 'returning home' is that you've made many changes since living there. As humans, we are constantly evolving. This means not only you but your friends and family as well. The way you remember them and the lives you lived together may have changed.
A memory is usually a beautiful picture of a moment that felt happy or perfect. Coming home, this moment may not exist quite the way you remembered. People may have had children, moved themselves, changed jobs, friend groups shifted, etcetera. Consider this; what made that home exactly the way it was for you - was you. You are an essential piece of that home. Everyone that you love, was in your life and in your community because you were in it. Like it or not, when you leave - that existence is forever changed.
I say this not to upset anyone, but as a perspective. I think it's easy for us to think - "oh if only I were there - I could go back to that perfect memory and live it again." This is a longing for what once was. Now if you visit, getting faced with any differences can be challenging and disorienting. You may in fact be reunited with all of the love and community you were yearning for - yet simultaneously be faced with change.
How can you handle and process this? The best way I have handled it so far is by acknowledging that you are loved in more than one place and that you found a home in more than one place. This will always be true. How fortunate are you? No matter where you go in life - this community you found and created for both yourself and them, will have always happened. There will be love and joy in the core moments that shaped who both you and they are. It can be hard to have your heart pulled in more than one direction, but instead try framing it as - I have more than one place I can call home - how lucky am I? I am rich in love and relationships.