Things You Gotta Do: Go Home

I neglected to mention in my Week in Review for last week that I have officially bought my plane tickets to go home to Maine over my Summer vacation.

I'm sorry, what was that you were trying to say about your state being the most beautiful?

I could not be more excited! I love Korea, I love everything about it and I want to live here for a decent chunk of time, but DAMMIT I LOVE MAINE! I miss so much about Maine, here's a short photo list:

#1 The Forests

#2 The Beaches (especially wasting a day in OOB and devouring Pier Fries)

#3 Food

#4 Food

#5 Food

#6 Food

#7 The New England State of Mind (I love New Englanders, they just feel like home)

ABOVE ALL ELSE...

I miss my family

I miss the three of us talking in our special langauge

I miss how much love and affection my parents shower on me every second of the day... they are also AMAZING cooks.

No matter how much you love your experience living abroad at some point you're going to become homesick. Even if you were extremely happy to flee your original home, even if it is filled with only bad memories, even if there's nothing left tying you there you have no idea how much your soul will cry out for the little things that you didn't even know you'd miss until you didn't have them around you at all times. When I moved to Tennessee for university I was convinced that I would never want to settle down in Maine, or even in the northeast, but that all changed within a few months.

The worst bits of homesickness definitely came around Christmas. It was the first Christmas in which my family wasn't all together and it was pretty painful for all of us to be apart. Now, ever since I bought my tickets home, I could not be more excited. There are so many things I want to do. I don't really have many friends left in Maine (I'm pretty horrible at maintaining contacts with people after moving, it's one of my least favorite personality traits), but I know that it's going to be packed and amazing nonetheless. Just imagining sitting in my parents' living room, watching trashy tv, and eating a cold cut sandwich with Cape Cod potato chips on the side is enough to make me squeal with excitement.

I have a good feeling that time away from Korea will remind me exactly why I chose to stay here another year (though I don't need to be reminded too much) and recharge my batteries to assault this next year like a boss. You need to go back to your home country now and then, it's the best way to get ready for the next adventures that living abroad is going to throw at you. However, you need to know the difference between wanting to go home for vacation, and just plain wanting to go home.