[Lara Croft]

I've been in NZ now for 2.5 months, working most of that time, and settling happily. And I keep getting sudden bouts of homesickness - like pangs of hunger for something that I don't have to eat... does anyone understand how I feel???

It tends to be for places rather than people - familiar shops, streets and cafes, places I played as a child, and roads I have driven. I figure that it is a deep down longing for the utterly commonplace and familiar, while everything here is still strange and new - does that make sense? Or am I just over-analysing late at night after several glasses of wine...

They don't last long, but leave me feeling sad for something I don't have anymore.

I'm not looking for a 'fix' (OH goes into "solution mode" for things like this), just to ask if this is just another side-effect of turning your life upside down - and yes, I think I just answered my own question!

Another glass of vino I think... and then bed...

J

[Red Devil]

... completely understand where you're coming from as we had a similar feeling whilst living in France last year, but our homesickness was quickly overcome as we knew we were only 7 hours drive from English soil. I understand yours is completely different, as you're thousands of miles away and contributes to intensifying matters furthermore. Keep trying to take the positives from your move and enjoy your new life in NZ... we're hoping our experience from France can go some way to helping us settle in NZ as and when we land there :)

[shakyle2906]

hi J

I understand how you feel, its only natural. You have made a huge step and still i suppose in 'limbo land', even after 2.5 mths here, probably got a 1001 things going through your head still.

I have to admit that we had'nt felt this way, but felt it a bit at christmas time. I didnt think i could get through christmas.

Have you got your own place yet or have you shipped any belongings over ? I guess you will probably feel more 'like home' when these things happen. I know when we had our own place, we felt more settled and when our belongings came, it was like christmas. Just having familiar surroundings may make you feel a whole lot better.

I think also, having the 13hr time difference sometimes doesnt help, as you cant just 'pick up the phone' and have a chat with a loved one back in the UK, you have to take that into consideration also.

HTH in some way................

Sharon
x

[Lara Croft]

Thanks folks.
We've had our furniture for a couple of weeks now (boxes everywhere still.... :) ), and yes, it does make it feel more like home (we are living in a very nice rental).

It's just a strange sensation that assails me every now and again, and I guess it's all part of the process. It's not even as though I want to be back 'at home in England', I'm happy here at the moment. It's more that I am not likely to ever see these places again - in the same way as when buildings get demolished and you know they're gone!

Cheers,
Jane

[Red Devil]

... do you sometimes feel like it's an indefinite holiday? We did when we were in France, we sometimes wonder if this is just one reason why it's difficult to settle in a new country... as though you're waiting for someone to knock on your door and tell you it's time to head back 'home'.

[zardell]

... do you sometimes feel like it's an indefinite holiday? We did when we were in France, we sometimes wonder if this is just one reason why it's difficult to settle in a new country... as though you're waiting for someone to knock on your door and tell you it's time to head back 'home'.


Absolutely.

I have said this before, but for me it used to feel (and to be honest, it sometimes still does feel) like day 13 of a your annual 2 weeks holiday abroad - you've enjoyed it, but your ready to go home.

I really envy those, including my OH, that have never felt this way.

Julie

xx

[IanW99]

It's all perfectly normal, I remember someone saying before that homesickness is actually the same as grief. You are actually grieving the lose of something or someone.

And as with grief this does (hopefully) get better over time, but it can be useful to understand where the feeling is coming from.

Ian

[peebles16]

It's all perfectly normal, I remember someone saying before that homesickness is actually the same as grief. You are actually grieving the lose of something or someone.

And as with grief this does (hopefully) get better over time, but it can be useful to understand where the feeling is coming from.

Ian


Very good point Ian and unfortunately can't rep you has have to share it around more :D I do think there are moments of 'grieving' or loss for the life we had before for me anyway - OH much more practical about things... It's not that I want to return 'back home' NZ is home for us but I do wish it was more familiar either that or I ship over friends and family too :p I'm ever hopeful that it will feel like less of a holiday and more like home when our container finally gets here :D


Karenx

[Tia Maria]

I had a bout the other day and I've been here 2 years.

I was walking home with my youngest son, and I remembered how at this age with my other 2 sons we had gone collecting conkers. Its obviously approaching Autumn in NZ, but there is no conker collecting and jumping in piles of leaves that the neighbours had swept up! :D

It feels to me like a fully 'interactive memory', rather than homesickness, where you actually feel it rather than just think about it.

So yes, I had one about conkers of all things!

Cheers

Tia

[Lara Croft]

So it's not just me..... Phew!
I guess IanW is right, it's a kind of grieving process, although for me it just comes and goes, rather than 'being there' all the time.

TiaMaria - they are supposed to have horse chestnut trees here, although I haven't seen any yet... And yes, conker hunting, blackberry picking, and jumping / kicking through fallen leaves is all part of autumn for me.

Jane

[JandM]

I guess IanW is right, it's a kind of grieving process, although for me it just comes and goes, rather than 'being there' all the time.I find 'ordinary' grieving does that. Just occasionally, after the first intensive stage, there's something I would automatically have shared with the person who's gone, and it's the absence that hurts. Last year, my uncle was talking about something in the village we came from and being annoyingly vague, and I instinctively thought, 'I'll ask Grandad - HE'll tell me it right.' Grandad's been gone 39 years, and the tears still came.

[buzztalks]

Sat watching the Test match cricket at the Basin, perfectly happy until the trumpet man with the Barmy Army started to play 'Jerusalem'. Had to put my sunglasses on so that my ten year old couldn't see the tears in my eyes....

It sneaks up on you sometimes...

[mgbridges]

J - its very normal. We've been here for 7mths and it still gets me from time to time. Bizarrely it seems to strike me when I go to the cinema on my own which is something I used to do a far bit back in the UK. It gets to the end of the film and I'm planning my route home and I always seem to visualise the route I would have taken in the UK. Comes as quite a shock when I walk out to the car park and I'm in Wairau Park and not Park Royal! :laugh

Tia - saw conkers at Western Springs when we went to Pasifika the other weekend, brought back sooooo many memories of Autumns in England.

Anneliese

[KerryS]

Tia - Franklin Road is lined with horse chestnut trees, so there are big piles of leaves to kick through, and loads of conkers. I'm pretty sure that there are loads in Western Park as well, although I appreciate both these places would be a trek across the harbour for you.
There must be some over your way somewhere for you to go conkering with your boys!

[v1cky]

I've been over here for just under a year now (wow its gone fast!) and I think the first 6 months are incredibly hard to adjust. The first 3 months are the most intensive and you are so aware of the distance from 'home'. I echo what other members have said, that it is a grieving process, equal in stress terms to losing a loved one. But when your life here becomes just as full as your old life was, you'll struggle to remember what you were missing in the first place!

[Smiler]

2.5 years in NZ, I still suffer from it and I'm just working though another bout.

It's not present all the time but I know when I start to feel it crashing in. I'm aware of what kicks it off and I know it will pass, but god it physically hurts, deep down in the depths of me.

It's the family distance factor thats the killer for me, not being able to pop into Mum's for a cup of tea, spending the weekend in the country down at MIL's or feeling down right useless when someobody's ill, like my son is at the moment.

We've been invited out for Easter Sunday and that was the reminder that we would have spent it with family and my family will all be together without us.

Ian's right it is like grieving, coming in fresh hurtful waves when a reminder of something that was so simple and was taken for granted before, is now so impossible to do.

But it will become less frequent and the pain will dull.






:yes

[Carol]

Because I am a visual person ..... (no really? me? lol)
I see it as a big huge black area in my life.
It isn't ever static - it moves ....and shrinks.... but never really disappears.


What happens though - is - the good experiences, happy times, things that give you a buzz, positive beautiful people etc etc start to put a band around the black.
With every day that passes - with all of those experiences - that band gets slightly broader and fatter. It is colourful - sometimes red, yellow, orange, pink.
As time goes by - the band gets wider and wider.
The big black space is still there.... but it is engulfed in warmth.

When things happen here that aren't so great - or there is something going on at home that you want to be part of with all of your heart - the black space grows again. Sometimes - it grows out of control.

Sometimes - the band swells to the point it is radiant. It can be so warm, the black space shirks away from it.
Sometimes - the coldness of the black space chills the band.
The design is always changing....






You know - I DO love a couple of Southern Comforts just before bedtime... lol
:D:nice1

[Smiler]

Because I am a visual person ..... (no really? me? lol)
I see it as a big huge black area in my life.
It isn't ever static - it moves ....and shrinks.... but never really disappears.


What happens though - is - the good experiences, happy times, things that give you a buzz, positive beautiful people etc etc start to put a band around the black.
With every day that passes - with all of those experiences - that band gets slightly broader and fatter. It is colourful - sometimes red, yellow, orange, pink.
As time goes by - the band gets wider and wider.
The big black space is still there.... but it is engulfed in warmth.

When things happen here that aren't so great - or there is something going on at home that you want to be part of with all of your heart - the black space grows again. Sometimes - it grows out of control.

Sometimes - the band swells to the point it is radiant. It can be so warm, the black space shirks away from it.
Sometimes - the coldness of the black space chills the band.
The design is always changing....





That is soooo well put Carol, it is exactly that! :wah :wah




Pass the SC Hun, I want to be able to express myself like that at 10 pm!

[Carol]

Ice?

:nice1

[Smiler]

Ice?

:nice1

Oh go on then, yes please, be rude not to.



But only if frozen Southern Comfort counts as ice. :cheers

[Carol]

But only if frozen Southern Comfort counts as ice. :cheers



*stops in tracks and wonders if that is chemically possible*



psssst D - we are off topic! lol

[peebles16]

Great post Carol - boy that Southern Comfort must be gooood stuff :laugh

Karenx

[Carol]

Great post Carol - boy that Southern Comfort must be gooood stuff :laugh

Karenx


My favourite......duty free especially!
lol

[benandclare]

Great post Carol - boy that Southern Comfort must be gooood stuff :laugh

Karenx

Getting a bout of H/S for Laphoaig now ;)

[ablears001]

Getting a bout of H/S for Laphoaig now ;)

Despite not being far through the immigration process yet, this is something I have already researched! Whisky Galore has an online shop with a good range including Laphroaig:

https://www.whiskygalore.co.nz/store/docs/pi-709525973_4.htm

cheers
Anthony

[Lara Croft]

Carol, how eloquently put :)

I think I am just realising that I am now an 'alien' - a stranger in a strange land (not sure what song that came from...). Back in England I took so much for granted, everything that was 'normal' and familiar, and all the little everyday things that you just 'know' (999 for emergencies, red-top is semi-skim milk, shops close on Easter Sunday etc). And here I have to learn it all again.

Most days I feel fine, excited and upbeat, and enjoying the process of learning how to live here. Then I get a wave of longing for a Galaxy Ripple, or to know just where to buy a certain thing, or to spend all Sunday morning mooching around Borders buying trashy (cheap!) books and Sunday papers.

And I know that simply having a Galaxy Ripple, or a fresh copy of the Mail on Sunday, will not make these longings go away because they are more fundamental than that..... god this is getting philosophical for 09:00 in the morning!!!

It's a bit like going to a party on your own, where you don't know anybody, and standing watching everyone talking and laughing, while you feel incredibly alone.... then taking the plunge and joining in :)

Jane

[John Z]

I'd like to share this one, maybe it helps:

part of emigrating to a country far away from your "old home", is that it makes it far more easy to live or be in the "here and now" instead of the "there and then". It's like having the unique chance to reboot your mind.

For me it worked because one of the reasons for emigration was to get away from "the system". The system is here too, but as I put somewhere else before, at least here you have the choice to be in it (when convenient) or out of it (to live the life I/you choose).

((Your) history is to be learned from, not to be copied)

Maybe this makes sense to someone...:laugh

Cheers, JohnZ

[mgbridges]

Jane - Galaxy Ripples are available from a number of English shops in Auckland. If worse comes to worse I will happily post one to you although I don't know if it would arrive in one piece!

John - yep makes sense to me.

Anneliese

[Lara Croft]

Thanks Anneliese, you are very kind! In times of stress, I may call upon you... :)

Jane
x

[Tia Maria]

Jane - Galaxy Ripples are available from a number of English shops in Auckland. If worse comes to worse I will happily post one to you although I don't know if it would arrive in one piece!

John - yep makes sense to me.

Anneliese

Anneliese did you know you could get galaxy from the chocolate shop in Takapuna (Hurstmere Road)? Not sure about galaxy ripples as I'm banned from going in there.

Lara Croft - I recently had a friend send me a galaxy care package (it cost about £15 postage which shows what a good friend she is!), it had galaxy, galaxy caramel chocolate eggs, galaxy ripples a dark galaxy (which I'd never had before) and a giant bag of minstrels - sorry I'm probably not helping, but just to let you know I know how you feel!

I went off to find this thread for you and found out you'd started it! :laugh

www.emigratenz.org/forum/showthread.php?t=15473

Another chocolate I quite like is Lindt Milk and they definitely sell that here.

Thanks for all the conker tips, I might take a trip over the bridge when the clocks go back, and wait for a grey day and get the kids to put on their wellies (I mean gum boots!).

Cheers

Tia

[Red Devil]

I guess the difference in seasons can't help either... typically in the UK and Europe late March/early April is a time when nature is about to 'spring' (pardon the pun) into action... however in NZ it must be gearing itself up for Autumn, that must take some getting use to :confused:

[mgbridges]

Red Devil - I keep having to tell myself that Christmas isn't coming as soon as I think it is now that autumn is here (although today it doesn't feel like it).

Tia - I have a much closer source of Galaxy chocolate - Bramptins in Browns Bay (alternatively the egg I got myself thats in the cupboard!)

Jane - anytime! I really do know what you mean about little things from 'home' making those bouts of homesickness a little easier to bear.

Anneliese

[Tia Maria]

Red Devil - I keep having to tell myself that Christmas isn't coming as soon as I think it is now that autumn is here (although today it doesn't feel like it).

Tia - I have a much closer source of Galaxy chocolate - Bramptins in Browns Bay (alternatively the egg I got myself thats in the cupboard!)

Jane - anytime! I really do know what you mean about little things from 'home' making those bouts of homesickness a little easier to bear.

Anneliese

Of course you do, still not been there! Glad to hear you are hiding the choccies, I must admit my sons didn't see one bit of my galaxy care package. Obviously I did it for the sake of their health and the fact that they simply wouldn't appreciate it!

Cheers

Tia

[Lara Croft]

Thanks Tia!!!

Is it legal for people to post you chocolate from the UK? What about MAFF restrictions? <<salivating at the prospect of a Galaxy Care Package>>

Jane

PS - A good friend of mine is already posting me some M&S essentials... I might ask her to slip in some chocs too....

[Tia Maria]

Thanks Tia!!!

Is it legal for people to post you chocolate from the UK? What about MAFF restrictions? <<salivating at the prospect of a Galaxy Care Package>>

Jane

PS - A good friend of mine is already posting me some M&S essentials... I might ask her to slip in some chocs too....

As far as I know its legal. They all write Chocolate in big letters on their customs declaration sticker and its never been opened or confiscated.

We also declared our Galaxy when we came through NZ customs as we had lots in the suitcase and that was fine. Although he did ask why we were bringing it, as he thought it was freely available in NZ?!

Cheers

Tia

[Lara Croft]

Flippin 'eck... if I'd known...... (I'd have left some paperwork behind and brought chocolate instead.....) Oh well.

I found a copy of Sunday's Observer for sale in a Welly store today, and took it to the till with a huge smile on my face. Then I spotted the price ($26... daylight robbery). Then I put it back on the shelf - I'm not that homesick :)

Jane

[shakyle2906]

Sat watching the Test match cricket at the Basin, perfectly happy until the trumpet man with the Barmy Army started to play 'Jerusalem'. Had to put my sunglasses on so that my ten year old couldn't see the tears in my eyes....

It sneaks up on you sometimes...



Hi

I was bit like that on sunday watching the rugby with my hubby, the national anthem for wales and when they won, we both sat here very emotional!

Sharon

[shakyle2906]

Thanks Tia!!!

Is it legal for people to post you chocolate from the UK? What about MAFF restrictions? <<salivating at the prospect of a Galaxy Care Package>>

Jane

PS - A good friend of mine is already posting me some M&S essentials... I might ask her to slip in some chocs too....



Yes its fine!
MIL sent advent calendars over for our son and has sent other chocs too. ALl i found was that some parts of it had gone bit discoloured on the calendars. She sent us a box of orange matchmakers............we missed them xmas time, they didnt last an hour!

Sharon
x

[themilkybarkid]

The thought of us being hit by emotional roller coaster of emotions being gutted and homesick slightly puts us off applying to NZ. I'd be worried in case one of us got 'hit' badly.

I can relate to what people are saying and appreciate the turmoil and physical as well as emotional impact it can cause. The fact is that 'homesickness' is bound to hit us all and relating it to grief, loss and bereavement makes sense.

But I don't think that we are passive recipients with no power or ability to do anything to prevent or stop this grief or indeed unable to prevent/treat the pain it causes.

Yes it can come unexpectedly creep in unnoticed but it also depends upon how we choose to think, how we busy our lives, whether we keep dwelling and comparing.

A friend of mine lost his wife to cancer 2 years ago - it hit him very very hard, but he worked very hard both allowing the natural process to take its course but also focusing on other things, keeping himself busy, appreciating the here and now. Yes he still speaks of his wife, he misses her hugely - but he doesn't allow himself to go too far down that road otherwise he knows ultimately it is self destructive.

It just strikes me as important that we don't see 'homesickness' as something which is free to roam in our lives and we just watch and wait for it to one day disappear. We can't eradicate it but we can act in our thinking and behaviours (which can impact our emotions). I think 'homesickness' can be a little like depression and we can't treat it lightly or make it our friend. Ultimately, if unchecked or out of control homesickness could damage people, families relationships. Guess also we need to identify when it isn't homesickness at all - it is basically that people are deeply unhappy with their lot, or when it is actually depression.

Sorry for the serious post - just trying to encourage those who may be finding it tough to actively work against it (without denying it's existence) -as most of us will at times and I'm sure we will if we eventually arrive one day!

Take care;)

[themilkybarkid]

did my contribution give this thread what we call 'the kiss of death':uhoh :laugh :laugh

too serious?

[JandM]

It's a serious subject, MBK. Sometimes, it's hard to look 'serious' in the face.:o