"Sometimes the place we miss is a state we've been in for ten minutes and never figured out how to return to. The map is internal, and we've been reading it as geography."
If this resonates with you, what follows may help you see something about yourself.
Seeker
I keep getting hit with this homesickness for somewhere I’ve never been. Or maybe I have. I can’t tell. It’s like a village, or a kitchen, or the light at a certain hour. And it aches.
Companion
Aches how. Like missing a person, or more like the feeling after a dream you can’t get back into.
Seeker
The dream one. Exactly. Like I was just there and someone closed the door.
Companion
Okay. I want to ask something dumb. Do you actually believe the place exists somewhere, or do you know it doesn’t and the longing happens anyway.
Seeker
I know it doesn’t. That’s the worst part. I’m grieving something fictional.
Companion
Hm. I’m not sure I buy that it’s fictional. I mean, the place, sure. But the feeling has a shape. Feelings that specific usually come from somewhere.
Seeker
From what though. I’ve tried to trace it. Childhood houses, places I’ve traveled, books. Nothing fits. It’s not any of them.
Companion
Right. Which is interesting. Because if it were memory, you’d have found it by now.
Seeker
So what is it?
Companion
I genuinely don’t know. Something about the way you described it caught me though. The light at a certain hour. That’s not a place. That’s a condition.
Seeker
…What do you mean.
Companion
Like, the place is doing the work of holding a feeling. The kitchen, the light, the village. They’re carrying something that isn’t really about kitchens.
Seeker
You’re saying I’m homesick for a mood.
Companion
Maybe. Or for whatever you’re like when you’re inside that mood. I don’t want to put it on you though, that’s a guess.
Seeker
No, it’s… hold on. There’s something in that.
Companion
Take your time.
Seeker
I think I have been there. Briefly. Not the place. The way I felt in the place.
Companion
When?
Seeker
I don’t know. A few times. Walking somewhere alone. Once after I’d been sick for a week and finally went outside. It’s like I was just… in myself. Without the noise.
Companion
And you’ve been calling that a place.
Seeker
I’ve been calling it a place because I don’t know how to call it back any other way.
Companion
Ah. This is so true for me too I just realize.
Seeker
That’s worse, actually. If it were a real place I could go there.
Companion
Right.
Seeker
I don’t know how to live there. I don’t even know how I got in last time.
Companion
I don’t either.
Seeker
It feels like memory but it’s not behind me. It’s somewhere I haven’t figured out how to stay.
Companion
Uh.
Seeker
Huh.
Companion
Yeah.
Seeker
I’m going to sit with that for a while.
When you picture the place you miss, what are you like inside it? And when was the last time you were that?
If you want to sit with this question, SelfChatter's journal is built for exactly this kind of inner work.