Return home anxiety

Okay, so it has been a while since I wrote here. Which funny enough, it is more related to not knowing what to write down first than not having anything to write about.

Last post I might have mentioned that I would write about cultural differences, but I came to the conclusion that that will be the biggest tl;dr I’ll ever write about, since there is just so much to write about it that I don’t even know how to start… so I decided to leave it for later when I find the correct mindset to face the task.

Meanwhile, I would like to talk about something that somehow, I never see it written or blogged about. However, according to my older sister, she also has that. I came to call it my “Return home anxiety” since I lack of a better name for it.

What is this? Well, you are outside of your country, busting your ass (okay, this semester this hasn’t happen that much… but usually it does), and you are counting the days to return home. Be with your family and friends, relax…

Except that there is no relaxation part, since you have pretty much your whole social life (AND I DON’T HAVE IT THAT MUCH) waiting for you to return. Suddenly, you see each day which you are in your home country as a jewl, something so precious which you must share it with someone. And you have so many people to meet that you make appointments everyday to meet someone different.

When you return home, your little brothers start to complain that they never see you. So you schedule a day at home to spend time with your family. Yet, they have lives too, and spending every second of their day with you it’s sort of too much… However, you start feeling anxious because you are wasting precious minutes of your time in Portugal and you aren’t sure they are being well used.

So yeah, in summary, Return home anxiety is the anxiety which one feels when they feel the need of giving a purpose to all the days of your holiday. And when you don’t. You get extremely anxious about it.

The good news is, over the years, you get the hang of more or less controlling it. Plus somehow, your friends most of the times, after 3 years begin to get used to it. It’s somewhat odd about friends, but mine I have that thing that even if I don’t see them/talk to them for a longgg time, somehow, I never feel weird when I meet them again. Like, sometimes, there is some strangeness, but it dissipates quite fast most of the time.

So I now just do plans as time goes. Like, if I feel like it, I schedule to meet people. If not, I chill at home. But yeah, there is always the priority which is, making sure I see my family (which means both my father and mother side) enough during the holidays (and not too much that I want to kill someone xD).

But yeah, have no idea if this is just a me and my sister thing or if there is more people (then again, most people I know just go for 1 semester or a year… they don’t have 4 years ahead of short holidays). 

But anyway, this is my comment about holiday returns. The worst ones are also the x-mas ones. Since the holiday is already traumatic enough without the time issue.