Homesick for a place that no longer exists

Russian has the word тоска. Portuguese has saudade. English makes do with “homesick,” which sounds like something a child gets at summer camp and recovers from by Friday.

What immigrants and expats feel is larger than that. It is longing for a place, for the people in it, and for the person you were when you lived there. And it comes with a cruel twist: the place you miss has kept changing without you. The home you are homesick for may no longer exist.

Why this grief is so hard to name

The family therapist and researcher Pauline Boss coined the term ambiguous loss for losses that have no clear ending and no ritual. Immigration fits. Nobody died. Your city is still on the map. Your parents still answer the phone. So the grief has nowhere official to go.

On top of that, three things tend to keep it silent:

• “It was my choice.” People feel they forfeited the right to mourn something they decided to leave.
• “I should be grateful.” Especially when others had it harder, or when family sacrificed for the move.
• “Nobody here saw that life.” It is hard to grieve something your new friends cannot picture.

How it shows up

Rarely as tears about home. More often as irritability, exhaustion, or a flat feeling that arrives after a call with family. As restlessness: a sense that real life is happening somewhere else. As conflict with a partner who adapted faster, or slower. As guilt on every holiday.

You can be glad you left and still grieve what you left. Both are true, and neither cancels the other.

What helps

1. Call it grief. Naming it accurately is a relief in itself. You are not ungrateful or weak. You are mourning.
2. Replace “either/or” with “both/and.” You do not have to choose between belonging here and belonging there. Most people who settle well end up with a home that includes both.
3. Make small rituals. Cook the dish. Keep the holiday. Speak the language at home. Ritual gives ambiguous loss a shape.
4. Find people who know. Not necessarily from your country. Anyone who has rebuilt a life elsewhere will understand more than you expect.
5. Say it in your own language. Some of this cannot be said in a second language. If you can, find a place where you don’t have to translate.

When to get support

If the longing has turned into lasting low mood, constant anxiety, or distance from the people around you, it is worth talking to someone. I work with immigrants, expats and multilingual families in California, in English and Russian, and I have made this move more than once myself. You are welcome to book a brief, free consultation.