Coming and going is always a strange phenomenon for me. You’d think after the amount of upheaval and change that has permeated my life from the very beginning that I would be a pro at smoothly moving through change. And perhaps on the outside it appears that way….but moving from a life that you are used to, comfortable in, to another life, another home, another place, always comes with the same feelings of panic and nostalgia and sadness and loss. I call it a change-attack instead of a panic attack…it’s a feeling so specific to changing my environment and the people around me that I feel like it deserves it’s own name. The feeling of panic usually hits first as a shock rushing through my body upon waking up, often from a nap (because everyone needs a nap after a big trip, right?). 
I open my eyes and in those first few moments of waking, when the world doesn’t quite feel stable again yet, when you still aren’t quite sure if you are really here, if everything around you is reality or still a dream, that’s when the feelings of nostalgia and sadness set in. I feel a tremendous longing for where I was and no longer am. Suddenly everything around me feels so wrong. Even if I’m in the most comfortable, familiar place — a place I missed terribly and had been begging to return to, I still get that feeling of loss and sadness for wherever I’d been.
Some of what I’m missing about my time on Easter Island…
the view we love so much from our “home” on Easter Island
enjoying “once” on the lanai
a parking lot just for watching the waves…where one stops for a break on a lazy drive home
the town “beach”
enjoying guava ice cream after a day in the field
renovations of the soccer field….prepping for artificial turf
a stare down between car and cow….an everyday occurrence on the road
gorgeous sunsets
a new decorative rock wall on the newest addition to the family hotel
Abuelita’s bucket cilantro garden
take-out ceviche from Hetu’u
waiting to board the plane….of to another home
So I’ve come to realize I just need to allow myself time to move through that stage of transition from one place to another — that place of sadness and loss for the daily familiarity of what was. I have to let myself trust that the comfort of an everyday routine with the people I see on a daily basis and with the places I inhabit, will return in this new location….and it always does. Within only a few days, where I was becomes a distant memory. Until I travel again, and the whole process starts anew.
Has anyone else ever felt something like that? It’s such a hard feeling to put into words.