It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like…

The holiday season is in full swing here in Liverpool and it can bring on some feelings of homesickness.  I thankfully live with a fellow YASCer who is doing a second year here.  Her name is Emily and I am so thankful to be with her.  She has become a great friend and a great support system here.  We celebrated Thanksgiving with other members of the cathedral community and while it was a great evening, it still felt a little odd.  I’ve spent one other Thanksgiving away from home when I spent a semester abroad during my junior year of college.  But unlike that last Thanksgiving, I wasn’t going to be home just two weeks later.  I looked around the table this year and felt calm.  I thought, this is my family now.  These are the people I will be spending the next eight months with and I smiled.  It felt great to be among people who loved us and supported us and were so happy to have us here.  With Christmas approaching, I can only imagine how I will feel.  Although I have someone very special coming to spend Christmas with me, I know it will be hard spending my first Christmas away from home.  I’ve fought so hard to stay focused and not let myself get homesick because it won’t do any good.  But while I’m decorating our house and baking cookies using my great-grandmother’s recipes I can’t fight it off anymore.  It comes and goes and when it comes it doesn’t stay for long but I’m realizing that it’s ok to miss home.  It’s ok to miss my friends, my family, my holiday traditions, my dogs, my cats, and even looking to the left first instead of the right before I cross the street.  So yes, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas but it’s beginning to look like so much more.  It’s beginning to look like I still have eight months left in this new home of mine.  It’s beginning to look like homesickness will be arriving and lingering.  But the comforting thing is my amazing housemates Emily and PJ and the people I work with and the friends I’ve made and everyone at home are here to pick me up when I get sad or frustrated because I’m away from the people I love most.  So Happy Holidays everyone and give your friends and family an extra squeeze this year.