Hiraeth

Hiraeth: (n.) a homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home which maybe never was; the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for the lost places of your past. 

Sometimes I miss places so badly that I fear I might burst. There are the big places, like Rome and Cambridge and Reutte and Erfurt and Oxford and Wittenberg which millions of others have enjoyed and shared. Then there are the places like Camp, the Farm, my friends' houses, and my own house which not many other people know about but which hold large pieces of my heart. And there are places that don't even exist and still I miss them, like Middle Earth, Narnia, and Prydain. I miss the places, I miss the people, I miss the times spent there. Growing up and moving on can be exciting of course, but often enough I find myself wishing that things could go back to the way they were and that I could find myself in one of these places again before time stole them away. No one ever warns you that growing up involves losing pieces of your heart in places to which you will never return.