Grass is always greener on the other side

I was asked recently by a dear friend about homesickness, I must admit I was stumped for a answer right away, I wanted to help but I had to sit down and think about it for some time, then I realised why I did not have an answer, homesickness is so personal to the person feeling it that it’s difficult to give proper advice other than a hug.

I remember back to my own situation when I moved to Ireland from Wales, how much I longed to be back there, it almost drove me to hate the country that I now call my home. Looking back on that part of my life I realise how difficult it was for me. Thinking about what I missed still makes me miss it a little. What I missed might seem strange for some people but some are all too common. The most important thing I missed for a while was my friends, this is a common problem for anyone moving away from their home, the sudden transition to having friends that call around or meet you in the pub to having none is quite a shock to the system, It took me a while to realise however that many of my closet friends had left my home before I did, yes I still had friends but the close ones had mostly much left for Uni or to a different country. My solution to this was to visit friends when I could and in the process of doing that make new friends in my new home, it’s not easy but sometimes you do find what you’re looking for.

Important to every living being is a need to be social, well with no friends in your new home its difficult, but once I started hanging out with a few of the lads from work, I was taken out to the local spots in Thurles and in Upperchurch. I started to fit in nicely I still missed people back home but I had a social life, even got myself a girl friend, for me this was kind of lucky, she was a local art teacher and when we started to hang out I really found my feet in the local area, I made new friends joined up with local clubs and right up to the day I moved from Thurles to Limerick me and her where together, many of the friends I had made where also still around, but i moved and made new friends, kind of fickle in a sense but the friends i made in Limerick are still good friends to this day.

Slightly more personal to me but something I missed so much was the mountains, yes this might sound strange but I missed Snowdonia so much. Ireland to me just was not the same, Co Tipperary was hilly but nothing majestic like Snowdonia. I had also developed a sneaky suspicion that Ireland was sinking, everything was a bog and everything was damp, I would not be surprised even to this day if I had to abandon ship cause the country was going to sink. Anyway, mountains and also the sea, I was brought up on Anglesey which some might know, is a small island on the North Wales coast, on the mainland was Snowdonia where I did my rock climbing and walking and around the island was beaches where I went and chilled out. I suppose thinking about there was lots about the local area that was different for me, mountains, beaches where missing in Tipp and there seemed less trees. In the end I could do little about this, I cannot change landscapes. There is always the knowledge that the mountains, the sea and the trees are not going anywhere, and will still be there when i visit or decide to return home, it is strangely comforting to know that.

The was other things i missed that I'm not going to include, some were just silly but I still missed them, others could be said were for my own good, in hindsight Ireland was still the best move I ever made.

Over time the sickness will get better, I remember the few first times I was home I cried a little every time I left Holyhead on the ferry, then sometime a few years back I got on the ferry, waved goodbye to Holyhead (I'm my mind) and looked forward to arriving in Dublin, it took some time but I had finally realised that Ireland was my home, and I was kind of happy to arrive back.

Article i found with some good advice http://www.shelteroffshore.com/index.php/living/more/dealing-with-homesickness-living-abroad-10290/