At first glance, I’m sure many of you will think that the title of this article is in a foreign language or spelled incorrectly. It's not. It is one of my favorite words in the English language.
Hiraeth:
(n.) A homesickness for a home you cannot return to, or that never was.
I had a conversation with a very close friend of mine a few weeks back. We were talking about how much had changed since we had come to college. It is a bittersweet realization that you have at this stage in life when the home that you grew up in isn’t really your home anymore; but, your residence at school isn’t really your home either. You’re just in this sort of limbo.
I think that this is one of the scariest parts of growing up. You’ve been in a comfortable place. You knew that you could go home to your family at the end of a long day and your mom would have dinner on the table. You could wake up in the morning, go to school, and talk to your friends that had been your friends since elementary school. Then, all of a sudden, high school is over and college comes. You don’t belong 100% to anywhere anymore.
I have had times in the past few years when I struggled with this feeling of not belonging. Once we all left our hometown after high school, we can never return to that home in the fullness that it once was. I don’t think that we realize this when we leave. It is not until a few months later, when our friends have all found other friends, and things happen at home that we had always been a part of. That is when we really start to notice.
During my first year of college, I had times when I would go back to my hometown ready to have that feeling of being home only to realize that it was no longer there. Before I found the word hiraeth, I didn’t have any way to describe this feeling. Only others who had been feeling the same way could understand. I have found that this is our time to grow and to become who we are really meant to be. After all;
“A ship is safe in harbor, but that is not what ships are built for.”
In the same way, we as people are not meant to stay in one place for our whole lives. We are supposed to set sail, explore raging waters, and enjoy the calm waves. If someday we find our way back to where we came from, we will know that that is where we truly belong.
But as we grow older, we also realize that maybe home is no longer a single place. We realize that we have begun to immerse ourselves in this world so deeply that home no longer exists and it may never again. We have given pieces of our heart to people and places along the way and we will never fully get those pieces back. That is the price that we choose to pay for the richness of knowing and loving people in more than one place.
In my own opinion, it is 100% worth it. Living with a feeling of hiraeth is a gift that is only gained by those who have had the courage to experience life to the fullest. Have courage and don't be afraid to give pieces of your heart away because this world deserves to experience you, just as much as you deserve to experience the world.
