Tuesday, November 09, 2004

My Definition

Having read Claire's post I started thinking about when I've experienced homesickness and what it was about that time of being away from home that made me react in such a way. I also got to thinking about comfort zones. For anybody who doesnt know about comfort zones they refer to areas in which a person feels secure and happy. Everybody has different comfort zones and people's comfort zones can change depending on your experiences throughout your life; however, your emotional state of mind can also greatly affect your comfort zones. I first heard the term when I was in India in July with a organisation called World Challenge; we were trecking for 14 days through the Himalayas. A few of us were discussing, with the leader, a girl who was finding the experience particularly hard and he explained to us that some people had
small comfort zones and others have large. In going to India we were all expanding our comfort zones, but this girl was having trouble adapting to this new way of life and was therefore feeling homesick. This is therefore how I would define homesickness, an awareness of being away from what you consider to be comfortable. I say awareness because i think that this is a major factor of homesickness.

As a child I was moved around a lot between my mother's house and both my grandparents' houses, and the only time I ever felt homesick was if I was ever very ill. I feel that this was because at a young age the boundaries of my comfort zones were stretched, therefore I found it easy to feel comfortable in a number of surroundings and environments. However when I went to Spain last Easter I was going to escape a number of problems at home. As soon as I arrived I experienced homesickness in away that I had never done before. I rang home crying and felt a dread at the fact that I had no way of getting back. I also think that an aspect of homesickness is your ability to get home. Here I have my car; in reality I'm never more that a couple of hours' drive from Cardiff; however I think that if I was not able to get home, I would probably have experienced homesickness here. It's that feeling of isolation and inability two return which makes you want it so bad and I think makes home sickness. It's nice to have the option to go back even if you never end up using it.

Philippa Thomas

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