'Thank you for the days': Homesickness

I miss driving on the freeways on a summer evening with the windows down.

I still do this, even here in Scotland.  I love that feeling!

I still do this, even here in Scotland.  I love that feeling!

Aye!  Nothing like the A9 on a clear day!

If we had a car, it would be great. I would go driving all over the place with my kids, radio blaring. Especially on sunny days! Today a friend took us to the beach and the ride home was nice cause it was sunny and warm, although I would have liked to have been the one driving...I do miss that, funny enough, even though as someone who used to drive 100+miles a day back 'home' I was looking forward to not having to do that LA commute anymore. Now I (sorta only kinda not really) miss it, well, the drive, not the traffic! Nor the getting up at 5am in order to pretend I was beating it....But a summer evening on an open freeway....sigh...

Having a car helps A LOT!  We had to take on extra work to maintain it, but it's soooo worth it.  You have the freedom to just take off.

Yeah, we hope to get a car one day. Maybe in a couple years. But the choice has been, car, or trip home for me and my daughter, and we've opted to go home, so we haven't had the savings/money for a car. Haven't had a car since I've lived here.

Yeah, we hope to get a car one day. Maybe in a couple years. But the choice has been, car, or trip home for me and my daughter, and we've opted to go home, so we haven't had the savings/money for a car. Haven't had a car since I've lived here.

Ah, I see.  Haven't been to the US in well over 3 years.  My family comes here, however.  Yes, it's deffo not a negligible cost.  The first year after DH passed his test, he paid about £90/month for insurance - he had full coverage.  Then there was road tax, MOT and petrol.  Now, we are keeping one of his parents' cars, so we keep full coverage on it, plus road tax of £170/annum, MOT and petrol.  It's cheaper w/no payment, but we still have to maintain it, keep it nice, etc.

But we went w/o one for about a year and it was harder, especially as we don't go on holidays and use the car to enjoy day and overnight trips around Scotland, festivals, picnics, going to the beach, etc. 

With the kids, I'd want full insurance on us and the car, which would be expensive enough given where we live (supposed to be really expensive for insurance in our dodgy area). I wouldn't be as fussed as to the sort of car -- only that it was in good working order and we'd have to maintain it as such. That too runs into a constant expense that we'd have to add to our budget, not to mention petrol. So there's a lot of costs to it that while we could manage, would tighten our belts from the way we live now, we'd have to do with even less and for sure no holidays (which aren't that bad really with the exchange rate as good for us as it's been, and the fact we stay at my folk's house so no hotel/lodging costs and they spoil us, and the flight costs we have gotten good rates for).

It was three years living here before I was able to go home. With the new baby I don't know how long it will be for the next trip. And my poor husband, because our daughter and I go to the states, he hasn't been on holiday for years (although I suppose he gets a 'holiday' away from us when we're gone but it's not the same)! That's our big thing, being able to send us out to the states every now and then. But we all gotta make choices in this life.

If we did have a car, we would do a lot more local outings and just the freedom it would give us would be fantastic. I would love to be able to choose what route to take to the grocery shop for once, and to be able to stop here and there on the way if I needed too, you know, to go to more than the one store in the one trip and not just when I go to the city center, instead of relying on the taxi driver and restricting where I go because it's too expensive and cumbersome to have the taxi take me to point A, and wait for me while I run into point B to pick up such and such.

Anyway jesus that was probably way more than anyone needed to know. Bottom line yes it would be great to have a car and we'd get out a to a lot more of the local fun stuff more often and on our own schedule instead of others.

If we did have

If we did have a car, we would do a lot more local outings and just the freedom it would give us would be fantastic. I would love to be able to choose what route to take to the grocery shop for once, and to be able to stop here and there on the way if I needed too, you know, to go to more than the one store in the one trip and not just when I go to the city center, instead of relying on the taxi driver and restricting where I go because it's too expensive and cumbersome to have the taxi take me to point A, and wait for me while I run into point B to pick up such and such.

We've found it's also a good way to get more in touch w/the country's history.  We have a National Trust for Scotland annual membership for only £30, but it gets into all the sites the Trust owns, so we've gone to see a lot of sites that are important to Scotland's history and festivals to celebrate its heritage.  Most have excellent areas for picnics as well.  A low cost way of enjoying the outing even more. 

It may not be an option for you now, but it's worth considering in the future.  Also, just to get a license helps, even if you don't have a car yet, b/c the insurance does into consideration how long you've held a license, and then you can also hire a car from time to time if you were unable to afford a trip to the States but could still do a driving holiday closer by.   

Get a car!
It'll do you the world of good... getting out and about, taking the family on picnics and outings.  Seeing the incredibly beautiful country that you live in.

Might help you to not feel so homesick!

Oh we go to a lot of the National Trust sites around here, a good friend of ours takes me and the kids almost every other week if the weather is good to some site or another, as she enjoys these sorts of outings and is a history/nature buff, it's a lot of fun. My icon photo is one I took during one of our trips. Today for instance we went to the beach up the coast and had a picnic, my daughter loved it and the drive was nice, gorgeous views. Coming up we are going to the annual Indian festival, which was really fun last year. Even without a car, we get around! I don't mean it to sound like we're stuck, when I am just being sort of wistful about things.

Good idea about the license, it's one of those things I have always been meaning to do but haven't gotten around to yet, without the need to it's not been top of the list. But the point about insurance is a good one. 

Anyway, I'm pretty good about homesickness in general (re the other thread I am probably 3/4 on the stages), I just wondered if things like a silly TV promo ever affected others in the way it gets to me. I think it's the combination of the music and the images, which is meant to evoke childhood nostalgia anyway, that gets me, especially because its imagery is of my home and close to my childhood memories. Double whammy! But I also have been known to cry at Lifesavers commercials and can't even watch that one cancer one with the people looking in the mirror imagining their dead loved ones who aren't there anymore.

Yeah, I'm a sentimental fool, that's me

It's sometimes scents that do it for me.  My sister is having a new house built, so she sent a load of kids' stuff her children have outgrown to Aillidh.  And when I opened the box I could smell the scent of her house - she makes her own potpurri from flowers she grows in her garden and is always cooking and baking.  Her house smells like heaven.  It made me think of happy times at her house.

Or my dad will send me a little something he knows I used to love - like a box of Fiddle Faddle or a can of Bush's baked beans.

My dad left his own native city for a better life, so of all people he understands.  All I ever wanted in life came to pass here.

My mom knew how much I wanted a family and a home, and how I'd been searching for them for years.  She was with me when we first came here on holiday years ago, and one night when we were walking back to the B&B from a night down the pub, she said, 'I think you'll come back to this place and stay here.'  And sure enough, I did. 

They adore my husband and in-laws and know how very happy we are here.

I miss them, but the rest is just nostalgia, like otterpop pointed out.  I know if I went back to Denver I'd be as unhappy there as I was when I left once the novelty wore off, and that things wouldn't be the same. 

Getting a car has helped so much, tho!  I mean, really, Ulster is SUCH a beautiful place, like Scotland, which you can see from some parts of Ulster on a clear day.  Just making a point to find out more, see more, and explore has made me realise all the more how much I love our home here. 

Oh man, my mom once sent me some sheets for my daughter (they have palm trees on them which she loves), and she'd washed them before sending them, that was really tough, totally brought back 'home' just sniffing them, I almost didn't want to use them at all to keep the scent, made my husband smell them telling him, 'This is what my home smells like,' he must have thought I was nuts but he sniffed them all the same.

Nostalgia is a good word, homesick to me doesn't mean that I want to go home to live, just that I get struck with the 'sickness' of missing my memories of it.

I've done that too with the sniffing!   Except in my case it was t-shirts. We were in the States recently and when we came back here and unpacked some of the clothes and such I caught a wiff of a shirt that I had washed the night before we were leaving. It totally brought me back, such nostalgia. I said something similar to my SO like you did and he said that he didn't know that laundry smelled differently in different countries. My response was "oh but they do!" Judging from the look on his face he thought I was crazy.

Gosh, reading your messages made me really start to think about how good it felt on a Saturday morning to wake up to the smell of freshly cut grass and the sounds of the riding mowers being driven by all the neighbors....and the dogs barking...sure I found it annoying at the time but I would jump for joy for a Saturday like that again.....sure beats waking up to the traffic, ambulance/police sirens and buses stopping in front of the house....