We yearn for the comforts of where we grew up, where we feel most comfortable and safe. To feel the warm embrace of mum’s hugs, or dad’s commentary on the football game. The nostalgic feeling as you walk past the park you played at as a child, or the mall you frequented as a teenager. All these small moments accumulate in our hometowns, and when we become detached from them, we are diagnosed with homesickness.
Homesickness.
Often seen as a negative: something that should be avoided, something that can be remedied, or something that means we don’t belong. I see it differently.
One’s ability to feel homesickness is the very fabric of what makes us human beings. To live life to the fullest. To explore every corner of ourselves.
Because at the heart of homesickness is love. A love so quiet and constant that we don’t often notice it until we’re away from it. They shape who we are, even as we grow, move, and change.
Homesickness is not a weakness. It is a signal, an internal compass, that reminds us of where we have come from. It grounds us, even when we are thousands of miles away. It means we’ve been lucky enough to belong somewhere deeply, even if just for a chapter of our lives.
Ironically, it is often through leaving that we come to truly understand what ‘home’ means. And while we chase our dreams in new cities, meet new people, and redefine who we are, that feeling of longing remains quietly in the background—not as a burden, but as a tether to our roots.
We are not meant to forget where we came from. We are meant to carry it with us. Like a well-worn photograph in a wallet, homesickness is a reminder that our stories began long before today—and that every new place we find ourselves in is just another verse in a much bigger song.
So no, homesickness is not something to fear. It is something to embrace. To feel homesick is to have loved, to have belonged, and to still carry that place inside you. And in a world that moves fast and changes often, that might just be one of the most human things of all.
Katy Scott 