Let's talk about being place-torn: that feeling like you're home but not quite

Last updated on 1 May 2017

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Place-Torn: the feeling of being pulled in two directions by places you love.

It’s a real thing, I promise. Maybe you’ve experienced it. But this happens to me every summer now. It never used to happen, but that’s because I hadn’t lived in another city in New Zealand other than the one I grew up in for so long. But now it’s different.

I always said that I never wanted to live in Auckland. Being a country girl at heart – give me wide open spaces, grass between my toes, paddocks of sheep and hay bales alike – the city was big, loud, full of city-slickers with their briefcases, high heels and I’m-on-a-mission faces. But you know what? It’s not that bad.

I was actually kind of looking forward to moving to Auckland. The big city, the lights and the sounds. The adventures. The new people. The new opportunities.

And I still enjoy it, I do. I have this amazing group of friends, an amazing community that I’m part of. I love the things that there are to do and see and experience. I love the different cultures that converge on Queen St, the waterfront with the cruise ships. I love how you’ve never really seen it all. There’s always somewhere new to check out. Always new memories to be made.

But then I go home.

I go home, and I remember the reasons I still call it ‘home’ even though I haven’t lived there for 5 years, and none of my family is there anymore. I guess I call it home because I grew up there. Some of my friends are still there, and there are people there who I would love to get to know more, to hang out with, to make better friends with.

And yet, I don’t live there.

Every summer I go home now, and it’s a fantastic month or so of catching up with old friends, meeting those people who are more on the side of acquaintance but whom I get along with so well, that each year they move closer to the ‘friend’ line, if there were such a thing.

While I’m away, I love it. It brings me joy and days of reminiscing, all the while making summer memories that will carry me through to the following year. But nearer the end of my time away, I find myself missing the people who I left back in Auckland. I see my friends heading back to work and Church and the year begins again … but I’m not quite there yet.

It’s in these moments that I find myself both longing for the comfort of my own bed, my house, my books, my life in Auckland, all the while feeling this sadness and ache for the place I’m leaving behind. All those people that I’ve been with for the summer are a joy, and I want to hang out, I want to go on adventures, I want to do life with them … but I also want to head back to Auckland and see my squad there.

Place-Torn: the longing to be able to merge all the places you love into one, bring all the people you love into the same place, so you never feel like you’re either here or there.

Perhaps you’ve felt it?