Eight months after I leave home, it hits me. The homesickness. It’s childish, I know that, and I am a fool for my emotions, but I’m also an adult and must stop myself from getting upset. I mean, it’s just the place I grew up in, right? I Google Map my old address in B.C. and look at my parents’ house like a foreigner in a new city. I’m so removed from it now.

Behind my computer screen, I stare closely at the house’s exterior to find my dog in the window. I wonder what my dad was doing when this picture was taken: reading The Guardian on the couch, surely. And Mom? She’s buzzing around mountains of fabrics in her sewing room. What about my brother? If this picture was taken before 2007, he’s probably working at Nighthawk, the local video store that closed down after everyone replaced VHS with DVD, and DVD with Netflix. Remember late fees? Shit, that feels like forever ago. But wait a minute, where am I in this picture? Somewhere. Not here.

I live across the country from the rest of my family, and I like that – most of the time. This isn’t a pity story about a woman separated from her family on the west coast. But today I feel terribly homesick.

When I left the west coast in 2009, moving away from home was a formulaic chapter in my life. I was a young woman determined to do something (to be determined) somewhere else. I chose Toronto, for whatever reason. While I was away, I befriended common sense and defined a career in something. But that never changed the fact that my loved ones were on the other side of the country.

I felt jealous of new friends who visited their family on the weekends in Ottawa, Hamilton, Mississauga or surrounding cities. It weighed heavy on me that I couldn’t do the same. I am 2,000 miles away; a 5 hour flight for the price of $700 (if I book 3 months in advance). A pain in the ass, basically. If I want to go home, it requires vacation time – something I’m too selfish to give up now. I always choose foreign land over old territory, all to spend one or two weeks somewhere else, somewhere new, somewhere I can be someone else. Going home is too familiar now. Going home is too comfortable. Going home is everything I want and don’t want in a vacation.

While I learned how to be a person in Toronto, I missed things. I missed saying goodbye to my dog before my parents took him to the vet to be put down. I wasn’t there to boil my brother a cup of tea after he broke his knee in a skiing accident last spring. I couldn’t hug my mom after her close friend died of cancer a few months ago, or go for celebratory beer with my dad after his promotion last year. I missed Kathleen’s graduation from theatre school. I missed the reunion drinks at Big Bad John’s. I forgot to stay in touch with the girlfriends I grew up with, the friends I drank Bacardi Breezers with and who later vomited sugar with me the morning after. The friends who spent detentions with me after school. The friends I left behind. It’s hard to keep in touch. And that’s an excuse and a truth. I turned into someone elsewhere. I changed. I found new freckles on my arms, travelled alone to places, cried in failure, and discovered kale.

With everything I wasn’t there for, I still miss things happening right now. I miss watching the humming birds on my deck. The sound of wind through the Garry Oak branches of Mount Doug. I miss the run-down chain restaurants on the island. I miss dirt roads. The “Boonies.” Langford trucks. Thetis Lake and all the tourists who drowned in it this summer. RIP. I miss slurping orange cream soda floats from the Beacon Hill Drive-In. Smelly goats in the children’s zoo. Royal Oak and the park where I swigged Captain Morgan’s for the first time. Oak Bay. I even miss the Lumber World that burned down. Pre-teen bag boys at Thrifties. The old Roxy theatre. Complex sneakers. Dogs off leash by the ocean on Dallas Road. Shirtless old men who run for miles and miles without stopping on the breakwater. I even miss the 50 plus benches dedicated to lost heroes of the ocean. The cold bottle of Dad’s Rootbeer at Ogden Point Café. And the smell of seaweed, just because.

I regret not being physically there for my family too. I called. I know I called. And I texted. And texted some more. Friends lost touch. I lost touch. That happens. It’s strange to think that my physical presence was suddenly replaced by a vibration of buzzes, beeps and texts. To my family, I am a missed call, a text, a ringing feeling in their pockets, purses and backpacks. Sometimes, I call the landline of my house to listen to my mom’s voice on the voice message machine – “Hello, you’ve reached…” I hang up. I’ll try again later. Likewise, my parents return the digital show of affection. They leave voicemails. Texts, sometimes. “Are u alive?” It’s a joke. But still. I fail at being the daughter who answers or picks up the phone. I open up a text message from my mom, only to find a message I forgot to send in the text box below. Ugh, Sarah, you idiot. Be better at this.

I feel my homesickness tickling my throat. It itches through the rest of my body; shining through the memories of climbing up on rooftops, dream catchers and swimming in the basket case of my brain’s cortex. I can smell the burning black tarp on my roof right now. Sunscreen is melted into my coming-of-age memory, with a copy of Brave New World and my clunky silver iPod blasting Ayo for Yayo. Downstairs, I hear my dog pawing behind the screen door. He wants me to open the back door for him so he can sniff into our family’s backyard kingdom of flowers and weeds. My dog never wanders far: a roundtrip sniff to-and-from the shed and back again. The sound of wheels turning uphill on driveway pavement signals the return of my parents from work. There’s a home-cooked meal on the horizon. I can see the old blue shed, the watercolour flowers on the yellow curtain and hear the sound of someone walking down the old wood steps to the living room. The kitchen is cooler in the shade, with a red light beeping on the home phone from a missed call. One missed call: from your lousy daughter, Sarah.

At this moment, I am brewing a cup of coffee in my parent’s kitchen. But actually, I am sitting in bed writing while drinking a cup of coffee that’s turned cold. I’m in two places at once. But in one I am living and the other I am re-living the past. I am separated, in a way that relaxes my anxiety of loss and change. But why haven’t I grown out of this homesickness? It’s been 6 years and I am no longer 18. And a home is just a home, after all. But maybe given my adolescent ways and sentimental attachment to little things like Polaroid pictures, playlists and postcards, I am just a child after all who is terribly homesick and alone in a woman’s body.