Missing Home

My whole life I’ve been wishing for everything but what I have; wanting to be everywhere but where I was; seeing myself for who I could be rather than being with the version of who I am now.

My whole life has felt as though I’m missing a home I’ve never been to and people I’ve never met - like my soul is longing for something it used to have, yet I can’t quite put my finger on what that is.

Because of this, I’m constantly searching, wishing, hoping, planning, moving, looking forward to, and dreaming just so I can get a taste of what it might feel like to finally be home. I live in this imaginary place of how future me will feel when I finally have all of the things I’ve been wanting, and at the same time - I grieve.

I grieve because the version I am now doesn’t have any of the things that I’m so desperately searching for, so I also live in a state of loss, anger, sadness, disappointment, and inadequacy. I live in a constant state of push and pull, of wanting to be there and not wanting to be here… wishing and wanting, grieving and longing.

I can feel the happiness and excitement surging through my veins when everything I’m hoping for finally comes true, and that’s when I realize… me and her are the same.

Who I am now and who I will become are the same person on different timelines, and it’s only when logic kicks in and I realize that the tangible things I feel happy about don’t yet exist, that’s when heartache sets in.

So how do I combat this? How do I stop living in this space where there’s only the future and past me?

I certainly don’t have it all figured out, but…

I can remind myself that just because I can’t see something in front of me right now doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. If I can feel the happiness surging through my veins at the idea of something, surely that must mean that who I am 2, 5, 10, 15 years from now already has it, so what is there to worry about?

And let’s say future me doesn’t have it, then I can only believe that something must have changed along the way and redirected us to something else.

So yes, while it’s so difficult to feel a longing for something I’m not able to hold onto just yet, I whisper to myself “we have to keep going, we just have to keep going”.

And what does that mean?

Not only do I keep working towards tangible and external goals and dreams, I continue to cultivate my inner world and experiences - learning how to be with myself, with my thoughts and emotions, practicing self-compassion, challenging doubts and negative self-talk when needed, exploring and figuring out who I am every single day; my likes and dislikes, needs and wants - and learning how to give all of that to myself so that I can be content with where I am now while looking forward to all that’s to come.

Because if future me can feel those things, then there’s something that present me has to do to make that happen.