Everyone online said that homesickness would kick in between 3-6 months after the move. I thought I would be different; I guess I’m a hipster in that way.
I was wrong.
Rewind a bit to November, 2021. I have been in Panama for 2 or so months, and I said things like, “I can’t imagine myself missing my old home”.
“I’ll never want to go back”. I felt like the decision we made was so concrete that missing the past would skip me.
I think a fair amount of that had to do with where we were living. From our landlocked home in Idaho, we had moved to a 6th floor condo overlooking the ocean. We had several pools to choose from every day. The breeze and temperature, while hot, was manageable. Things were easy. It’s hard to look back when you are falling asleep to the sound of the ocean every night.
The funny part about life is that it is always changing. Truly, I love that for the most part. Sometimes I will throw together some meal with ingredients that I have around and just make it up as I go. Occasionally, it will taste really good and I know that is the only time in my life that I will ever eat it. It is unreplicable. Nothing stays the same.
In our case, we had several changes that were happening all at once. To be specific: we were moving from our 6th floor condo to a nearby home, we were entering the dry season in Panama, we were buying a car, our first holiday season away from family was approaching, and our closest friends here were moving about 5 hours away. The latter was devastating to us. Jeff and Debbie are like family to us. They moved to Panama from Olympia the day before us, and we went through a lot of growing pains with them. It’s almost like we have a shared Stockholm syndrome with them due to our experiences, and now the time had come for us both to fly out of the nest. It just sucked that we were flying different ways.
This all happened at our 3-month mark: mid December 2021.
In regards to our new house, it was scarier than we thought it would be. On paper, it was almost too good to be true. It is located in Coronado, a sister neighborhood to Gorgona; known for being the Beverly Hills of Panama. It’s a stretch, to be sure, but it is a great neighborhood.
In addition, we were going from 2 bedrooms to 4.
2 bathrooms to 3.
No space to a lot of space.
No yard to a nice fenced one.
Public pool to a private pool.
And our backyard was essentially the end of Coronado, so it’s a huge field that extends about as far as the eye can see, filled with trees and wildlife.
Rent was less. More money means more time in Panama.
But:
We were leaving our home field advantage.
We were losing our always-on water and generator backup for spotty electricity and “do we get water today?”
The staff at the condo was incredible. Many were our friends. Adios.
We were trading our gated condo for a house with barred windows.
Observing wildlife changed to living with wildlife.
And maybe most importantly: we lost our ocean breeze and sounds. We were only a 10-minute walk from the ocean, but it might as well have been a 10-day walk because our two favorite parts were gone.
With everything compounded at once, December 15th hit like a ton of bricks. We all felt very scared and exposed. Almost immediately, the thoughts of Idaho started creeping. Not all the time, but from none to some. Little things felt like big things. Stuff like figuring out trash pickup felt like WWIII. Getting a new pool guy was the equivalent to nuclear holocaust. Buying new furniture and having it delivered was like playing chess against a Russian Master. We made it unnecessarily tough.
It’s now been a month, though, and I can tell you it has gotten a lot better. Our new home is starting to feel like a home. The homesickness still happens occasionally, but it’s just par for the course. Every time I think about something I miss in Idaho, I forgive myself and think:
“Three to six more months of this and I’m clear”. That’s what they all say. I guess I’m not different than everyone else that does this. As it happens, I am more on-schedule than most. If that’s the case, I can take solace in the knowledge that this is not forever.
This too shall pass.
Nothing stays the same.
the eventually home 