Once I realized that I missed the sounds of home, I began to recreate them. I found myself cleaning my new home more so I can hear the busy noises of chores. I don’t have a dishwasher, but even the sound of running water and dishes clinking helped.

I wasn’t very good about vacuuming back home but started to do this in my new place frequently. After all, I could justify it because I work on a farm and it does get dirty a lot.

One of the best things I did, and potentially worst ideas ever, was to open my front door right when I woke up. I had a screen door so this allowed air to come through without fully exposing the outside into my space. It was the best idea because I could hear early-rising coworkers or interns talking as they walked by to start their duties, specifically milking the cows or watering the nursery. Normally, as I got up to get ready, I’d see them walking by my windows but never could hear them. I woke up early but the other workers were probably still asleep or doing their morning rituals. So when the first shift people got up, I felt more like home.

This was a bad idea because we also had centipedes and mice on the farm. Luckily, I was asked to shelter the new farm kittens in my cottage and keep them safe. As they got old enough, they became the residential rat catchers. However, to say my cottage didn’t get any critters crawling in, would be a lie.

I don’t have a TV or good wi-fi where I am, and you reading this probably agree that television sounds are a staple in any home environment. We did have a library a few minutes away and they had movies for rent. I go there once per week and rent out a film or two to play on my laptop. This, by far, has been a saving grace!

Next to the library they have a pizza parlor and play sports on T.V. I like to go there when my dad tells me about a game that I must see. No one goes to get this pizza to hang out, usually just take-out, so I never have a problem asking to change the channel. On occasion a coworker will come with me, but that’s very rare. Still, it’s okay, because I’ll put my dad on FaceTime and it’s like we’re watching together.

You may think this is crazy and that I am defeating the purpose of being away. That I’m sabotaging my opportunity to live in peace. Trust me, there is plenty of quiet around me. Everything I am mentioning here happens almost every day, but it isn’t all day. When I am missing home, I do one or all of these things. Or I just sit outside of my cottage and talk on my phone with my parents and friends back home, even though I have a spotty connection.

If you are deafened by silence, well, that’s why they made ASMR, right? Creating background sounds of familiar settings is a miracle. It works. Say you lived by a train track, something you hated so much you literally left to get away from it, but now miss it, you could play a video of a train on your phone or any device. The same goes for people who lived in cities and miss the sounds of sirens or traffic. There are ways to help soothe your nostalgia and melancholy of missing home. And trust me, when you really miss it, you will find a way to recreate the sounds.

I used to get annoyed when my dad ran the dryer every morning. Our third garage was converted into a bedroom, with a kitchenette. In the garage next door, was my own refrigerator. My parents created this space as a bar slash den but as I got older, they agreed to let me move in there.

The only problem was privacy became less. The laundry room, like most homes with garages, was attached to my new bedroom. Again, so was the actual garage. Frequently my parents would go through these pathways to get into and out of the home. My brother did, too. Most times they knocked, other times they did not. Eventually I put up a room divider to block the view you get from opening either door. I did this because I was caught changing one time my dad decided to just barge in.

I’m not going to talk about breaching my privacy as much as I want to talk about my dad needing to fluff his clothes before he went to work.

He never broke routine. If it ever was messed up due to going on a vacation or my mom having a holiday off work, he’d get stressed out and immediately return to his routine as soon as he could – and that meant leaving our vacations early so he could get right back into it. Part of that routine was starting the hot water in the shower, grabbing his clothes for the day, and tossing them into the dryer to de-wrinkle as he washed up. This means for about 10 minutes the dryer was running every… single… morning.

When I lived through this, I never got used to the humming. The worst part was when the zippers or buttons would hit the dryer walls. You’d think drying clothes came with monotone, but no. Dryers make different sounds at different times and with different types of clothing. So it was just annoying. Why couldn’t he iron like everyone else? And why for ten minutes?

Now that I am away in a remote location, I miss that sound. Well, not the sound as much as I miss my dad being there. I always wished he’d break his routine up and stop being so meticulous – just let loose and have fun. But, now that I think of it, I appreciate the predictability. And I also appreciate that he would make some stupid joke as he poked his head in, or he’d ask what I had planned for the day.

No one is around me in the morning. Most of the people I work with have their own morning routine and it’s quiet. The majority do yoga or meditate. I do smell incense, and that’s nice. But the sound is missing. Besides birds waking up or breakfast being made. As far as people sounds… nothing. No laughter. No sound of my dad’s news. No rushing noises as my mother tries to get out of bed 20 minutes before she has to clock in. Nothing like that at all.

I know one day I will miss the silence and stillness of my mornings here, but right now I miss the sound of home.

The other day I realized I am not alone in this nostalgia of old noises and sounds from where I used to live. I haven’t talked to anyone around me about this, or that I have this blog. Still, the universe must have brought forth a companion for me.

I was sweeping my little place, doing dishes, and just deep cleaning. I usually do this one of the days I am off work just because it’s not my place, just a room and board I stay at. So I like to show respect to the owners. But also, because it is a farming situation and things get dirty quickly. Anyway, lately I’ve liked to play one of those movies I rent on my laptop while I clean. It reminds me of my home where mom would be doing housework, and the television would stay on. She said she liked to listen to the shows or movies while she worked. In fact, she even did that at her job. She’d secretly play something on her phone just to have that sense of home while she was away. See? Even she did this whole noise nostalgia thing. When you miss home, it seems to be the thing to do.

This particular time I was playing the Labyrinth. I’ve seen it a million times so just listening to it brought back memories. I could clean while it was playing simply because I did not need to look at it to see what was going on.

One of my coworkers came through my door with a bottle of wine and asked me to pull out the glasses because he wanted to share. I invited him in and decided to take a break from cleaning. Once he saw what I had on the laptop, he smiled big and shouted, “Is that the Labyrinth?!” Then he told me to bring it over to the table to watch with me. He went on and on about when he first saw that movie. And one story led to the next. We got to talk about things we did before working remotely on a farm.

It was clear that nothing could take away his nomad spirit of traveling and getting away from the grind, but you can tell that he also felt fondly over the memories of his past. No matter how down to earth someone seems to be, there can always be a commonality over favorite movies, sports, or other mainstream media type of entertainment.

This isn’t a sound I find comforting, but there is a woman I work with who used to work at a hospital and got used to the sound of sirens from an ambulance. With all the familiar sounds I hear, a washing machine, weedwhackers, and other “home” sounds, even the sound of movies, the one I never hear are sirens. We count ourselves lucky.

My coworker, however, worked at the hospital in her town for over 10 years. I asked her how she could possibly get used to a sound like that. I’d be on edge every time because it usually indicates an emergency. She said after some time you find comfort in it, though she was ashamed to admit it. She enjoyed her line of work. She liked helping people. And she had accepted that these types of emergencies happen and that she was proud to be on the frontline.

You see, to her, most people in their homes hear sirens and get alarmed because we can’t do anything to help. The unknown frightens us or makes us upset. For her, it was a reminder of why she did what she did. She worked to heal people. She comforted them. She calmed down families. She was active in responding to the sirens because to her, and many would agree, she was a heroin.

Why she ended up coming to work on a farm was exactly what I wondered, too. She said office politics got out of hand. And let’s be fair, she didn’t thrive in her career simply for the sirens. She liked to help people and that was her main prerogative. Still, she had to report to people above her and after a while, that got to be too much for her stress levels. Funny, I’d think that sirens were enough to stress me out, but not to her.

She decided she wanted something quieter and to help medically in other ways. Now she works with our livestock. She’s not a veterinarian, but she helps care for them – feeding, grooming, and companionship. And she’s great at it!

She does tell me on occasion she misses the actual work in a hospital, wearing comfortable scrubs, and especially being in a clean, sterile environment. However, for now she is content with the work she does because she knows she is still a healer and helping other living creatures thrive.

We’re not sure where we’d be without her, either! She’s a natural caregiver.

This one isn’t so much about missing the sounds of home as it is about finding the sounds that are similar. Because I work on a farm, there are particular sounds I hear often that I also heard many times back when I lived with my parents. And those sounds are… gardening noises.

Weedwhackers, leaf blowers, lawn mowers, and loud diesel trucks. These are now a few of my favorite things.

When I was on my computer in my old room, I got so annoyed when a gardener next door would start their machinery and I couldn’t hear my video game. Even worse if they arrived super early and I was still asleep. Now, it makes me feel like work is starting and when work starts, that means people are near and energized. This helps because it gives us all a chance to socialize, to see smiling faces, and to do good work worth celebrating together later.

Talking is a sound we all crave when it’s gone. Because mornings and nights are quiet where I live now, I cherish the daylight hours because it’s active. We’re all alert and chatting and working toward a mission. It keeps me busy and from the feelings of homesickness. And it helps me adapt more to this new life I have, which helps me move on and forward.

Just like you can recreate sounds from home, you can also find ones that are similar. This is probably the healthiest way to go about this. Why? Because you can actually learn to grow rather than sink into your homesickness and eventually quit. I’ve thought about quitting so many times in the first six weeks. When you feel this way, there is a tip I’d like to give you that helped me so much.

Book Your Trip Back Home ASAP

That’s right. When you first arrive at your new place, already have the trip to visit back home booked, and book it within six weeks from when you arrive, or the most, three months. My first week here I told my boss I’d be visiting home and needing a vacation. They were shocked that I made it so quickly, but I had to do that. I made up some excuse, like my cousin (aka best friend) was having her first baby… which was true, but I didn’t want to sound like a baby myself implying I missed my mommy and daddy. Even though that was true, I knew I was in a grown-up world now and that would live with my reputation forever.

They granted my vacation and guess what… that was the only vacation I needed for months and months.

Here’s what happened:

When I went home I dove right into all my old habits and things I truly missed. I went to my favorite restaurants, I hung out in my old room (which was a den again), and I watched sports with my dad. I saw old friends, had the same old conversations, and went shopping for supplies I needed at my cottage but couldn’t buy there.

And that quickly faded. Sooner than later, I realized exactly why I left. I missed the sounds, yes, but I didn’t miss the mundane-going-nowhere lifestyle my family and peers had. I remembered that I left that old town to become a new person and living back there wasn’t going to allow that to happen for me. I felt gratitude to have my family and friends, but immense peace that I now had a new place to call my own. A place so different than anything I was used to.

That’s why I haven’t needed another vacation to visit. That little sudden trip back home was enough to lock in my skull – this is exactly where you want to be.

When I do get homesick, I now know it’s because of the people I miss and the sounds that come with them. In their homes or hanging out around town. But it’s not the town itself or the lifestyle.

This is why I recommend you book that trip and soon, too.

You need to trick yourself in a way. You’ll think you’re going back home to fulfill feelings of nostalgia, but what you will really learn is that you made the right choice to leave. That alone will help make this process of being in your new place easier. In this way you can grow and prosper in whatever it is you’re working toward.