Recently I was asked by a friend to write a piece about being homesick.  I thought: what do I know about homesickness? I love being away from home and I love returning home with equal measure.  So what then do I know about the Heimweh described by German poets and writers like Goethe? What do I know about that longing for a home, a homeland or a place I cannot have?

Then this weekend I had a crash course in being sick (and homesick).  I got a cold or the flu... I am not sure which and I don't think it really matters one way or the other.

On Friday afternoon it was all I could do to drag myself from my classroom to the bus stop.  On my way out of the building a student I don't teach (but have talked to a few times) said to me: are you okay? you don't look as happy as you normally do? I told him: nope, I think I've got the bug that everyone has been passing around school.  He told me to feel better soon.  At the bus stop on Friday afternoon the students were all in a good mood.  I made small talk with a few of them.  The last thing I did on Friday before crawling into my bed was to go to the pharmacy.

The pharmacy.  The place that is supposed to have something to make you feel better.  Well, if you speak the language.  It's hard enough to navigate a grocery store when you don't know the language let alone a pharmacy where everything is behind the counter and you have to ask for it and on top of this you don't feel well.  It's pretty overwhelming.  So I bought what I always do when I am feeling bad: ibuprofen, cough drops--strepcils--and some cold medicine thing that you mix with hot water called fervex.<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1344" title="Medicine " src="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/dsc01192.jpg" alt="Fighting the Flu!" width="500" height="375" />

I made it home and then promptly slept for all of Friday night, most of Saturday and Sunday.  In my waking moments, I drank copious amount of tea with honey and lemon.  I lamented how horrible it is to live in a country without Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup. <!--more-->I wondered about what kind of a support network I actually have in Bulgaria in the off chance I was really, really sick.  I broke a glass thermometer on my tile floor and wondered how I should clean up the not-mercury insides which had miraculously scattered all over my floor (turns out not to be that easy).  I thought about doing dishes but was then glad that I had enough that I didn't have to pry myself off my couch to do so.  I just stacked them up in neat piles.

It's during this sickness that my homesickness struck.  My homesickness came in waves.  Like when I realized the thing I wanted more than anything was to have a  bowl of Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup.  So much so that I dragged myself off the couch and made a trip to Billa to find something noodle-ly and salty.  I found it (and I must have been some sight at the supermarket).   But it's not the same as when someone makes it for you and I've got no one to make it for me.

Then on my way to bed one night while making a cup of fervex I found myself longing to be able to actually read the dosage instructions on the medicine I was taking rather than guess at it. I like to know what I am taking--what I am putting in my body but that's difficult when you don't speak the language.  I'd also like to know that I am taking it according to the directions.  Oh well. I'd also like to feel some relief so I took a little medicine and drank plenty of tea.

Later came the realization that I wanted to watch a bad tv marathon of Law and Order or some other crime show. I think that a little piece of me believes that anything can be cured by a tv marathon.  The only thing that came close to a marathon on tv in Bulgaria was Jon and Kate Plus Eight but it's impossible to listen to Kate yell at Jon or the kids all day when you're sick.  To sick to read, I wished that I was lying on a couch in the States able to watch truly bad tv.

That's the thing. I didn't actually want my MoM or my own bed.  I just wanted this sickness to be easier.  Not as hard as it was here.  I wanted things that were familiar to me.  I wanted to feel like I had just a little bit of control over this illness.

I am still not back to perfect but today I think that I am on my way.  My voice is a little horse, my eye are runny and itchy and I've got a pretty serious cough but I am going to make it.  And I am no longer as homesick as I was.  In my case it comes and goes. It ebbs and flows and I am glad for that.

So what's the deal with homesickness then? I think in my case, it sneaks up on me when I least expect it.  It shakes me, it makes me long for something else and it makes me think how would it be different if I were at home? And that's the thing, if I were at home, I'd still be sick.  I'd still be unhappy.  I'd still want something that I couldn't have.