there isn't a proper word for the feeling we call 'missing', 'grief', or 'homesick'. homesick is a bit closer but it's still wrong.

that feeling combines achiness with yearning, longing, missing, and a catch in your throat. it fills up your middle and your joints and gets into the marrow of your bones. this is what i feel for my grandparents, for good friends i can't speak with anymore. this is what i also feel for very specific places: plitvice, brela, san remo, morges. it is what i know i will feel when i finally go to scotland and live there. the land of my grandmother, and of my mother's ancestors.

it's on days like this where i don't dare look at memories in my mind, or photos from trips. i know it will just make the ache worse. even looking at the green plant above with its new raindrops, a plant from outside toni's house, makes me ache. i'm working so hard to fulfill the demands of this ache. it says to me go. and it also tells me, this land is in your blood, but you do not belong here. you belong to other places, places that shape your imagination and your soul. places that trigger a recognition in you that goes beyond blood. these places are in your bones, in your memory.

it is a ruthless combination of instinct and hurting.

scotland, and the mediterranean. i belong to those places. i ache for them. and i ache for those i've lost.

Labels: grief, memory