Being homesick.....

....sucks.

It's a given that I am going to miss my family and the few friends that I left behind. I have been here 70.5 days, and I don't think a single day has passed where I haven't seen/heard/done something that reminds me of the people back home. I've learned that I cannot think about my baby kitten because I miss having her around so much I start to cry. Sometimes, when one of the cats here curls up with me (especially all-black Max), I feel terribly guilty. I can talk to people via email and the phone, but there's no way for me to tell Daphne that I haven't deserted her, and that I'll be back in December. I hope she remembers me. I wish I could bring her back with me. I looked into pet visas the other day, and it's a six-month process that I wouldn't be able to take care of here. I miss my baby.

And this is how my homesickness manifests itself. Like I already mentioned, I would really really really really really like to see everyone sooner as opposed to later, but I've managed to keep from getting completely depressed about it by either choosing not to think about it, keeping myself busy, or a combination of both. But every now and again, like tonight, something random and minor will set off a crazy slippery slope of homesickness that ends with me desperately wishing that I'd never gotten on a plane. Which actually turns out to be helpful. Once I've reached that extreme, I realize how silly I'm being, and start grudgingly working my way back up the slope I was all too happy to go careening down in the first place. I'm trying to teach myself how to meditate, and that's helping a bit, although I always seem to call up memories of sitting at Doheny whenever I get into it.

Tonight's homesickness trigger was making chocolate chip cookies. I think that because I don't acknowledge every little moment I get all wistful about back home, the little moments all build up until I can't bottle them up anymore and they all surge forth with startling swiftness. Sonja inspired me to make chocolate chip cookies around six this evening. Went to the grocery store, bought chocolate chips and my new secret baking ingredient, then immediately started baking once we got back. While mixing up the batter with Sonja's hand mixer, I longed for my grandmother's KitchenAid mixer, which would have done ten times the work of Sonja's mixer, without requiring any strength from me. While dropping cookie dough onto Sonja's single undersized cookie sheet, I dreamt of my cookie sheets, capable of making 30 cookies at a time, compared to the six I was able to fit on Sonja's. And every time I took a batch out of the oven, I yearned for the oven in my mother's kitchen, capable of turning out 60 cookies every 8 minutes. Sonja's manages six cookies every eleven minutes.

In all fairness, there simply isn't enough space for a KitchenAid or a big oven, and I'm not sure if my big cookies sheets would fit in the oven she's got. Before moving here, I'd always at least doubled cookie recipes. Hell, I octupled the snickerdoodle recipe once. Had to do it in two shifts of quadruples, and I still thought I was going to burn out the motor on my mom's mixer. I can't even remember how many hundreds of cookies I made that day. Can't do that here. Nobody would eat that many. And since I work where I live, I don't have the option of bringing leftovers to the office to be eaten.

But I'm rambling off topic. Tonight was baking. And the smell of somebody burning wood in their fireplace (Doheny.....can't wait.....). Last week it was a desire to see mountains, hills, anything besides the constant crush of buildings that is London. I want to drive my Jeep through Trabuco Canyon. I want to make cowboy coffee with a proper coffee maker. I miss junk food, haven't had a soda in weeks, and I'd love to eat about fourteen Big Fat Chicken Tacos, no tomatoes with extra sauce.

These are the things that make me cry for home while clutching Mr. Bear (since that's what I brought him for). Ridiculous.

And now I've fought my way back up Homesickness Hill. So all this melancholy whining of mine has served its purpose and purged all my unhappy feelings. Woot.

On a side note, the thesaurus does not have an entry for "homesick". It is listed as a synonym for "nostalgia", but does not have its own entry. Strange that such a common state of being is so singular in description.

But I think following that train of thought shall have to wait for another day.....