Homesickness is something I dealt with a bit when I was away. I was gone for 3 months, and spent at least a month, off and on feeling sorry for myself and wanting to come home. I loved it when I got there; I was soaking everything in and learning a lot. Right off the bat, the YMCA threw me into the field where I was in meetings, speaking on behalf of the YMCA. It was great, I really felt like I was contributing to their work. After a couple weeks, this all died down and I was stuck doing tedious office work like rummaging through papers, stapling, photocopying with a photocopier that rarely worked…etc. It didn’t take long for me to realize I was halfway around the world with nobody I knew and I still had another 2 and ½ months. I also felt extremely dependant on others to do things for me.. how do I get there? (see Transport).. who is making me supper?.. what should I do now?.. etc.
One day would be great, where I was really involved and busy, and other days were not so great, where I’d be stuck in the office doing nothing, literally nothing. It was those NOTHING days where I would just think about home and how awesome it would be to have a big cup of coffee, a hot shower, and some home cookin’.
I was homesick the entire time I was there in a way, but for about a month it was pretty consistently one day good, next day not so good, the next day pretty bad, then back to good again. When I left home I 100% positive I was going to get homesick, but just because you know your going to get homesick it still doesn't prepare you for it. I certainly wasn't prepared to get extremely BORED, and feel completely USELESS.
Eventually I began to get really comfortable around the people I was working with, and established a good little group of friends. Not the kind of friends you keep for the rest of your life (maybe, who knows) but just to keep me company at work when I got bored. I used my down time to go visit other people around the YMCA, the accountants, the computer lab, the digital studio, the vocational school, the basketball court where kids would go play. I realized that I didn’t always have to be doing work to feel productive. I managed to turn my useless time into experience time, meeting people, building friendships, playing with kids. This was how I dealt with my homesickness.
The homesickness really only hit me when I started to feel BORED and USELESS. Doing things that made me feel useful (like playing with kids, making friends) made homesickness really just a minor thing and not a major thing.