There is agony. And anxiety. And excitement. There’s still a couple of days of reluctant wait and long flights ahead . A journey that can take up to 24 hours, depending on the traveller, but it certainty feels like an eternity to all of them.
It doesn’t matter if the distance is 40 or 4,000 miles - being away from home feels the same when the first symptoms of homesickness arrive. It usually happen in December, when the holiday season beings; the food from the dinning hall starts to taste (even more) tasteless, the bed in your dorm room suddenly becomes very uncomfortable, the weather you once loved seems too depressing now, the friends you made don’t seem to understand what you feel. And then you look at the pictures you took last summer, and you check your inbox for messages from home friends, you’re tagged in pictures with captions that say “miss you” and “can’t wait for you to come back”, you catch yourself staring at the calendar several times a day just to make you haven't missed a day - “how can I make this week pass faster?” you wonder.
It’s not that you don't like it here. You chose to live here, after all, and you are far from regretting it. You truly love so many things about this vibrating and splendid city - from the subtle magic to the beautiful mountains - but when your heart feels like it’s time to come home, nothing seems so appealing anymore.
You dream about airplanes, plane tickets, long flights, lack of sleep, luggage, the arrival, the opening of the door and the hugs from all the family members who came to see you again after months. This is when you remember that finding your way back home is one of the happiest parts of every trips.
And it’s holiday season - and not being home for that is basically a crime. Speaking as someone who has spent this season in some dreamy locations thousands of people would kill to go to, who has watched the ball drop and the mariachi bands of Cancún, spending the holidays in a strange place - regardless of how beautiful it is - just doesn't feel right.
You can barely concentrate on anything. If you are writing an outline, you start to write down the list of friends you’re gonna see in just a couple of days; if you are eating, you think of all wonderful food your grandmother is buying just for you; when taking a test, you just remember of the time you went to school back home. Everything is about home, and you are more Brazilian (in my case) then ever before. Everything that happens to you, good or bad, just makes you arrival on the emotionally influenced conclusion: everything back home is better.
Leaving can be hard to, even if you are dying to go. Saying bye to the friends that have become your family away from home, packing all the necessary things while studying for finals, buying secret santa gifts and attending holiday gatherings. But once you remember that your family is decorating the house, going christmas shopping, and doing whatever holiday family tradition without you, all there’s left to wish is for santa to bring you back home at this very second - you spend the entire year missing birthday parties and celebrations, you can’t miss christmas!
But then the waiting is over. You take your overpacked suitcases - full of gifts and souvenirs - and you leave. Even if the plane is late, even if you get the middle seat, or even if the immigration line takes two hours - just to enhance your agony - it is all worthy it when you arrive at that very familiar airport, where you feel like people know you at this point, walk to get your luggage and see the people who make your life extraordinary. It doesn't matter that you're just saying for a couple of weeks as long as you come, because, without a doubt and as travelers know so well, coming back home is the greatest gift of all.
