I'm not homesick. I'm homiesick.

AKA missing the impossible of taking everyone you love with you.

Long before I moved overseas or got married or went to college, I was a loser reenacting the Ace Ventura rhino birth scene on the playground.

Being an undateable freak for much of your life leaves a gaping hollow that you can fill with Hot Pockets or narcotics. Instead I chose the purest of friendship.

In a world of Mean Girls and Not Hot Lists, I was somehow able to find compadres who would stand beside me and hold my hand even when I sucked at Red Rover.

While playing crime scene Barbies and arguing over who gets the N64 rumble pack, I remember a weirdly adult voice chiming in my head.

This is everything.
This is what 50 Cent will one day rap about in 21 Questions.
Don’t ever walk away from this.

It was excruciating being an uncool kid. But it introduced me to people you can’t find as a grown-ass woman starting over in a new country.

Outsiders mate for life.

The older I get, the more I long for omnipresence or teleportation or the ability to Polly Pocket everyone I love and carry them with me. I burst into tears whenever I watch the Sleepover Episode of PEN15 because that secret world of goofy, intense inseparable-ness doesn’t organically slot into adulthood. And that’s so fucking sad.

The most uncomplicated joy we’ve ever known is packed away and we’re supposed to just be into Bed, Bath & Beyond now?

Does no other adult long to snort Nesquik in a treehouse with their work buds?

Are we really meant to partner off and shoot out some kids and politely cancel brunch plans until we die? As a wise but oft abandoned Kevin McCallister once said, I don’t think so.

So I girl trip. And I sleepover. And I send obscene amounts of video messages and care packages. And my husband is so amazingly supportive and never feels threatened. (Marry a Brit.)

I chase the gleam of people who epitomize the other half of a BFF necklace from Claire’s but without the allergic reaction around your neck.

Do you feel this, too? When your prom date (who’s now into guys, so relax everyone) sends you a meme like this?

The night before Christmas of 2022, I felt a special kind of melancholy. I felt a sadness over the fact that no matter where we are, we’re always absent from somewhere and someone. And as I sit here exactly 1 month out from full-time motorhome life with my bestest travel companion – SO EXCITED – I also ponder the added logistical layer of having people visit when we don’t know where we’ll be at any given moment.

Living your best life is heart-breaking.

I’ll leave you with a tender quote from an equally emo expat.

“And actually, what I long for is a place that doesn’t even exist, an amalgam of everywhere we’ve ever lived, and full of all the people who have been part of our lives.”