Missing

This Thanksgiving break has made me the most home sick since I moved to the US. Not only passing through the airport made me feel as if I was actually on my way home, but also that its intersecting with Hanukkah, which makes me crave for the traditional foods, specifically those we eat at home – my mother’s latkes, and “Jewish donuts” with dulce de leche from my family’s favorite bakery. I guess that’s how we’re “programmed”, to associate specific tastes, smells or sounds to a particular memory or event (which is also how advertising mostly works), which makes everything so much more complicated. Why do I depend on these materialistic things to help me feel at home? I’m emotionally burdening myself even though I’ve stayed with relatives, ate good food, and am communicating daily with my close family through Skype’s video calls, as if they are actually here. So why can’t I still get over it? I have traveled by myself before, and enjoyed it greatly, but this time in DC I just wanted my family to be with me, to experience together. I’m basically preventing myself from “seizing the day” and only thinking of what I don’t have. Human nature, no? We always crave for what we do not have or is no longer within our reach. And even though I am conscience of this and its emotional impact on me, I cannot do anything about it (without taking off).


*Thanks to my father for reviewing my post