Thoughts of Home

A street in my neighborhood in Gwangju

    This is a post I started back in April/May when the first wave of homesickness really set in. I have extended my contract and will therefore be here another 6 months. Several people I know are leaving or have already left the country after completing their contracts. Seeing these people leave has reminded me that if I hadn't extended... I'd be going home now, too. That's hard. I think of home a lot. So without further ado...

  I know this is where I'm supposed to be right now, but that doesn't stop me from thinking of home. Random things send flashes of homesickness. Like how, on the bus ride to school one day, I was looking over the landscape and suddenly I missed my hometown. I miss Huntsville -- just the common sights, the roads and buildings and, of course, the rocket!

  I miss the trees and the flowers. I look at the hills around here and they're beautiful, but they're not Huntsville's hills. I miss Green Mountain.

  On the way to my bus stop in the morning, sometimes I pass a little plant shop. Then I miss tending to the gardens around my house. Oh, those gardens are nothing fancy, for sure, and they are a lot of work to maintain. It gets so hot out in the summer that I can't stand to work outside for very long. Even so, there's something so satisfying in working outdoors, tending to plants.

  As it was just beginning to get real hot, I wanted something cold & wet to refresh me... I could've easily gone to any convenience store here and bought some kind of frozen treat... but you know what I wanted? Sonic. Not just any ol' slushie will do -- I had a hankerin' for a Sonic slushie!

  I miss eating dinner with my family. I miss the food, but even more so, I sorely miss the company.

  Don't get me wrong. I'm happy here. I have made some great friends, I have found a great church, and I have a strong sense of purpose in my work. It's an adventure. Still, the thoughts of home keep popping up. Frankly, it's distracting.

  I don't want to wish away my time here in thinking of home. I want to be FULLY here. I want to live wholeheartedly, and I want to be focused. I need to live in today. I keep reminding myself that if I am to long for the future, the future I long for ought to be eternity -- not the temporal, earthly future.

  When I am so far away from home, I have this sense of longing that doesn't go away. I realize that this longing should be a mere shadow of the longing for my heavenly home... My true home. It is just an echo of the longing built into my very being.