Evidence of Homesickness
It’s okay to be sad; this isn’t the life we were created for.
Have you ever experienced something so beautiful, so perfect, so otherworldly—that it made you sad?
Maybe you laid in your partner’s arms after an argument, sitting in the safety and love and forgiveness within your relationship. But the thought gnawed at you: “Why can’t it always be this way? Why did we have to argue in the first place?” Or worse: “What if we don’t get to do this forever?”
Maybe you were lost in the music at a concert on a Wednesday night, feeling fully connected to yourself and your humanity and the people around you. But then reality hit: “I have to open my laptop and answer emails again in 12 hours.” And then an even deeper anxious wondering, “What’s the point of spending my days that way anyway?”
Maybe you watched a dazzling display of fireworks with your favorite people, feeling inspired and fully in-the-moment and fully human. But you felt the weight of all the beautiful moments lately that you haven’t been present to—and now they’re gone.
Or maybe you looked into your child’s eyes and felt a high that was nothing less than spiritual. You were filled with love, joy, compassion, and pride. But you also felt the weight of grief—a sadness about the baby they’ll never be again, or a kind of forward-looking grief that reminds you they’re constantly growing and won’t be the same kid even next year.
Why does this happen—this mixture of deep joy and incredible pain?
Why, in the middle of even the most restful vacations, we find ourselves internally counting down the days with a looming dread?
Why do birthdays, even if we’re surrounded by people who love us, often feel like a loss?
Why does happiness feel so fleeting and why does loss sting so badly?
My favorite answer to this question is best summed up in this quote by C.S. Lewis:
“If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”
Maybe our unmet longings whisper (or scream) that the world isn’t how it should be. This wasn’t the original design.
Maybe our common ache is evidence of our collective homesickness.
Why do we ache when we see injustice?
Probably because each one of us was created to experience fairness, justice, and compassion.
Why do we long for loving, safe relationships?
Probably because we were made to be fully known and fully loved.
Why do we feel intense grief at the loss of a relationship or situation or person?
The simple answer is that we miss what we’ve lost, of course. But another way of understanding grief is this: we’re homesick for a reality in which that person or thing is still here.
We know our broken reality wasn’t in the original screenplay. This isn’t how it was supposed to go. Our souls recognize that they were never meant to carry the weight of loss. This isn’t the world we were designed to live in. And we feel it.
Maybe we’re all just foreigners here. That’s why nothing ever feels quite right.
Maybe every tear and protest and sinking feeling and heartbreak is evidence that this isn’t all there is.
Maybe we’re all just a little homesick.
Sarah