I am 4,489 miles from home. It sounds like a lot, but sometimes it doesn’t feel far at all. When big things happen back home, I feel as if my brain is separated from my body. My mind soars over the Atlantic Ocean at warp speed, seeing familiar places and faces, feeling as though nothing has changed and as if I never left.
This mind-body uncoupling has occurred most distinctly in conjunction with the impact of Hurricane Helene, which devastated my home region. Experiencing this disaster, which has deeply affected my home, friends and family, while abroad has been uniquely difficult.
I was out at a bar with friends when news of Hurricane Helene hitting my hometown started to blow up my phone. In an instant, my mind flew away, swirling with more questions than available answers.
How could a hurricane stay so powerful all the way to the mountains? Was my family safe? Was my city underwater? How bad was the damage? Who was helping? What could I do?
I quickly texted my parents to make sure they were okay, and I started scouring the news for updates; however, as we at the Daily know too well, news reporting isn’t always as instantaneous as we would like it to be in a critical moment.
Slowly, my mind started to rejoin my physical surroundings, and I was met with the ugly truth: There was hardly anything I could do other than wait for more information. Of course, that is much simpler to say than to accept. So, the only next step was to put down my phone and try to refocus on the place and people around me. Once again, this was much easier said than done.
And so, with the help of good friends, I re-centered myself as best as possible in Germany. However, there was a feeling of unsettledness that I couldn’t quite shake.
The first wave of relief hit the next day when my parents were able to respond to me. Unfortunately, they reported that most of our county did not have power, the traffic lights were down and trees had fallen on homes, streets and cars. The second wave of relief hit when I was told that our home, which my father had built over the past 22 years, was undamaged.
My people and my home were safe, which is exactly what I told everyone who checked in on me in the next few days. And yet, the feeling of unsettledness remained. My mind and my body had not fully rejoined, leaving me feeling less present in my abroad experience.
This feeling took weeks to resolve in full and is still not totally gone. The constant news articles covering the destruction have kept Helene often in my mind, even thousands of miles away. With every photo or article, my thoughts end in the same place: My home needs help, and I am not there.
In the end, sometimes bad things happen in the places you most care about, and you will not be there. This can lead to feelings of guilt and turbulence, which is completely natural. Your mind may be thousands of miles away from your body, floating somewhere between the home you grew up in and the home you find yourself in now.
I’m not sure I have anything to end with that doesn’t sound cliché, but maybe that’s the point. There will be moments for everyone abroad that pull their minds back towards home. It’s never easy to be far away from those you love, and everyone will experience it differently. The most important part is that the experience is universal as much as the details are unique.
