Hiraeth

[sinisterporpoise]

 I ran across this word on my Facebook news feed. The word is Welsh in origin, and it does not have a direct English equivalent. It is homesickness with a sense of a nostalgia. A longing to return to the home of your past, coupled with a fear that such a place may never return. It also carries the idea that somehow, the place you remember may only have existed in your head. (Warning: I seem to be having a low spoons/mana day so I may end this post abruptly.)

For the past few months, I have longed to return to Pennsylvania, thinking that the return would improve my situation slightly. The Keystone State does provide greater support for people in my situation. I've avoided seeking out a return. Money is one barrier, but I also know that I may just want to believe that the grass is greener on the other side. Returning home would also mean dealing with my family on a more regular basis, and that can drain a lot of energy.   I want to think that I'd be better off in Pennsylvania or any other blue state, but there is no guarantee that this would be the case.   

On an unrelated note, I recall another conversation where I said I could accept being in pain for the rest of my life as simply how things are. I wouldn't mind this situation ending, but the response surprised me. The other party in the conversation said, "I don't like to think like that." I didn't think I was being negative, but I don't see how accepting things are they ARE could be misconstrued as negativity.  I've found this to be a necessary step in dealing with other long-term problems.

Comments

[silk_dragon_zen]

Ugh, I can't stand it when people scold (or at least chide) someone for their coping methods. I totally agree with you (and so does science): learning to accept (stop struggling against) unpleasant but probably permanent situations as being (again probably) permanent (or at least not something that we have the ability to change) is often necessary for finding peace and even for being able to pull out of a related (secondary) depression.

For example, being legally blind isn't something that's a source of angst and misery for me. I grew up knowing I'd never see any better (nor that it would get any worse), and there probably wasn't anything they could do to fix it someday, so I just got used to it. And that's okay; that isn't “negative” in an unhealthy way.

It's like the serenity prayer says: we might as well accept that there are some things we can't do anything about and that aren't necessarily likely to get better on their own, but instead we can just focus on what you can do to make other things better. I don't know why this prayer isn't more popular outside of the AA community: for anyone of a religious inclination, it has great wisdom for people in all sorts of situations.

Hiraeth = Dor

[silk_dragon_zen]

There is a word in Romanian dor that has the same meaning. Oddly, I've felt this feeling for places I didn't grow up, but which are part of childhood memory. In particular, Long Island, where my father's parents lived when I was a kid. We visited there most summers during the whole month of August and spent time on the beach nearly every day, visited family friends, and enjoyed various things you couldn't get out here in Seattle, like local ice cream brands, the shape of butter on the east coast (which was different from that on the west coast), etc. And of course my grandparents' house and little out buildings, the Shop where my grandfather did most of his wood working and oil painting on canvas, and the tool shed (far less interesting to me).