…on hiraeth
I’ve never been to this place, but it evokes the feelings that I have been steeped in the last little while. I’ve always in my head imagined I would live in a city loft like this - no longer an immediate dream with a kiddo, but still a feeling that I wish I had something like this.
I’ve been feeling really lonely lately. Not the kind of lonely I was when we went into lockdown last year, not the kind of lonely I was in high school eating alone, not even the kind of lonely I was between boyfriends in my 20s.
This is more of a loneliness in my soul. An aching for something I can’t name, a longing for something I’m missing that I’ve never had. I learned an old welsh word this week – hiraeth – that loosely translates into “a nostalgic longing for a place you’ve never been or something you’ve never had” which I think most closely matches up with my feeling.
Some of it, likely, is related to not really travelling for a year and a half – not to anywhere far away, or a new culture – absolutely. Travelling, particularly to places that have a contrast of language and culture, is something that I know fills my soul up. But in some ways, I’ve realized this week that it’s actually a bit of a distraction from the feeling under the feeling. It’s no coincidence that I also was hit with a big old ton of bricks this week labelled “you’re turning 40 in 6 months”. While I’m not someone who has ever begrudged getting older – I truly love the person I’ve become over the last 20 years in particular – it is absolutely a birthday that it feels hard to pass without some amount of reflection.
And reflection, for me, often leads me down the comparison trap. To be clear – comparison is a vital and necessary part of being a human. The cataloguing of things has been essential to our survival: this is a table and I can sit at it, this is a car and I should not step in front of it, etc. But we as humans are meaning-making machines, which means it’s not as simple as “this is a table” but instead “this is a table and I don’t like tables in this shape so now I’m unhappy” #nooffencetotables #itsnotreallyabouttables
But assuming I have the privilege of living to 80, I really am at the mid-point of my life, and in a culture that’s youth-obsessed (to be fair – that’s changing and thank god for it) it’s hard to feel like “the best is yet to come”. Gone are my chances to show up on a “40 under 40” list. Apparently I should already be saving for retirement. People have “mastered some hobbies” by 40 – all I CAN tick off is that I can read fiction faster than anyone you know (I keep meaning to learn to knit! But here we are, almost 40 and I haven’t tried). But I can’t say that I’m crystal clear on my values, or I’ve found my career “sweet spot” or that I’ve mastered how to make small talk at parties (actually, I was great at that in my 20s but I am definitely getting worse at that one…) or anything else on the lists of “things to do before you’re 40”.
But I digress. Whatever the reason, my heart or my head, I’ve been standing here in limbo hating the dread. #grinchreference In that space I have been looking for more connection – to myself, to the world around me, to people. My default is to escape into books (this is my Pisces “living in a fantasy world” come to life, 100%), to focus on all of the tasks at hand (keeping a small child alive, chiefly), to Netflix and ice cream on the weekends – all of which are good, but none of which fulfil this hiraeth.
And I wish I could tie this up in a neat little bow with a lesson about “how I found something that satisfied that” or “what I did to feel better” but oh would life be that easy. Right now, I just long for something that I don’t have and haven’t been able to piece together for myself. I know the energy of fall will revive me – or I hope it will, it often does – but to really honour myself and my feelings right now means I’m lonely. I long for things I’ve never had, for things I imagine, for things to take me out of this mundane limbo.
Today, I sit in hiraeth.
