Texas Lou

Whenever I leave Texas/home/family or get back to reality after a lovely trip to Texas/home, I get this nagging tinge of sadness.  It eats at the back of my mind.  It makes my heart ache.  It creates the lump in my throat.  It makes me question my place in my life.  Can I stay in Virginia forever?  Will I stay in Virginia forever?  I have to stay in Virginia forever.  I feel trapped.  I’ve made a life here, a wonderful and amazing life filled with beautiful souls surrounding me.  But I also have a life there, a wonderful and amazing life filled with more beautiful souls who I long to be around.  I start to panic, worrying about all of the moments I’m missing with those people in Texas.  I start to get jealous of them because they are there and I am not.  I miss my mom, I miss my dad, I miss them all.  Sometimes I wonder if I have Separation Anxiety Disorder.  Sometimes I wonder if I’m just an emotional child who never learned to be OK with being on my own.  And other times I wonder if maybe what I’m feeling is normal even though it hurts so very much.  The tinge of sadness turns into much more.  It turns into anxiety, emotion, pain, and depression that engulfs me.  Its like I’m on a roller coaster.  I go from level ground in my every day life to being at the very top spending an amazing time with people who I miss and love in a place that I miss and love and then I’m down at the bottom trying to get back to that ground level again when all I can think about is the very top.  My mind conjures up an old woman, the me of the future, here in Virginia, all alone, with no one to love me and let me love them.  This may be my biggest fear.

My main motivation becomes getting back to that top, back to Texas, back to the ones I love as often as possible.  The reason I seek a high-paying job, the reason I save my money, the reason I allow my inbox to overflow daily with the latest airfare deals.  It becomes an obsession.  I need to find a way to stop this cycle.  Leaving my family and Texas cannot always reduce me to becoming an emotional child.  It’s not healthy and it’s not fair for the ones around me that I love.

Here are some things that seem to help:

• Having another trip or visit to look forward to (this isn’t always easy as I don’t always have the next trip planned or booked)
• Getting back into a schedule as fast as possible
• Spending time with the people I love here to remind me why I am here
• Counting my blessings…being thankful that I am even able to take the trips
• Talking to the people I love there on the phone or on the internet to remind me that they are only physically far away but close in all other ways (thank goodness for Facebook, Email, Cell phones, Skype)
• Escaping…into a movie, into fun, into activities

I’m not sure if any of those are healthy ways of dealing, but they all seem to provide some relief until I’ve reached that level ground again.  Please, if anyone has any suggestions or ideas, I’d love to hear them.  How do you cope with being permanently away from the ones you love?