What Does It Mean to You to Feel Homesick?

My whole life, I’ve loved travelling.

I was lucky enough to start at a young age, and when I was about thirty years old, I decided on a big one — a whole year in Australia on a working holiday visa. It was great — I found a place to live with some friends, a nice job close by with interesting people, and was enjoying the sun, the beaches, the outdoor lifestyle, everything Australia has to offer. But after a while, little things started to annoy me about being there — no cask beer in the pubs, the Premier League being on in the middle of the night, Christmas being in summer — and they really started to add up, like death by a thousand cuts.

This was the longest I’d ever been abroad, and for the first time ever I was homesick.

I could deal with the sensation, but I was troubled by why I might have been feeling that way.

I can’t stand nationalist attitudes, and I was terrified I was turning into one of those terrible people that hates everything foreign. I thought of Martin Heidegger’s awful idea that ‘All philosophy is a form of homesickness’ that caused him to sympathize with the Nazis and antisemitism. It’s everything I abhor.

But I obviously couldn’t be turning into a monster overnight, so what was it?

While ruminating on that question I remembered something I’d read Charles de Gaulle once said.

I paraphrase, but it was that whilst nationalism is a hatred of other countries, patriotism is just a love of your own. I’d never really felt patriotic before, but this was the best way I could describe it. I didn’t hate Australia, it had been so friendly and welcoming to me, I loved Australia.

But even though I know it’s far from perfect, I love the UK the most, because it’s my home — and I want it to be as friendly and welcoming to everyone as Australia was to me.