response to home for the holidays

I was driving down a straight, vacant highway in central Indiana, watching the sun set and considering how I was nearing the end of my journey.  As I drove, I considered the wide variety of interactions that I had had on my journey.  For whatever reason (maybe because I was missing my family?) a particular conversation that I had with a young man in central California stuck out to me. 

I had been waiting in line at a gas station, buying a Red Bull because I needed to stay awake for the long night of driving ahead of me. 

“That stuff is so bad for you,” a voice me behind me said.

I turned around to see a young Hispanic man. 

“I know, but I have a far way to drive, unfortunately, and I need to stay awake” I replied.

“Oh, where are you heading?” He asked. 

I told him how I was heading home to see my family, as my father had recently become ill.  Soon we were talking about our respective families.  He was from Mexico, and his entire family still lived there.  It turns out that a lot of the men working here had families back in Mexico, and homesickness was a major sentiment shared by these men. 

I, too, had been feeling homesick lately, and was struck by the fact that all of these men were also experiencing the same feelings. 

            We talked about how it was certain little things, like familiar smells that reminded us of our parents’ cooking that triggered this homesickness that so many of us felt.  Although he and I were living in very different circumstances, our homesicknesses were almost identical.  I soon realized that, although everyone yearns for a different place, the sentiments of homesickness are shared across all varieties of people, and is truly a shared human experience.