Homesick (Part 1)

Have you ever felt drawn to a place you have never been?  I'm not even sure "drawn" is the right word:  Homesick.  Is it possible to be homesick for a place you have never lived?  It must be, because much of my life I have been homesick for England.

Now I realize how ridiculous this sounds.  The definition of homesick is "Acutely longing for one's family or home."  England holds neither for me.  I didn't always classify this feeling as homesickness... it started in childhood, but it was always chalked up to an obsession by my family ("That singer she likes is from there--that must be it"), or some other rationalization... but I knew differently.

As I grew into a teenager I just sort of buried it.  It never went away, but I didn't go on and on about it like I did as a child.  But eventually it bubbled back to the surface when I was in my early twenties, and I started making cursory plans to take a trip (with my brother's mother-in-law, if you'll believe it.  We were pretty close). I should note that this was pretty big, as nobody in my immediate family (and most of my extended family) even had a passport, much less decided to go to another country on vacation!  "Vacation", to us, was the Jersey shore, or maybe a drive to Florida... that was the extent of things.  "I want to see America first," was what I heard from most of my relatives (although they never saw much of it themselves anyway).  In 1997, I got my passport--I was OVER the moon!  I couldn't believe this was going to happen.  I started saving my pennies for pay for my share of the trip... it never happened.  School and money got in the way.  I was not raised to just "go for things", so unless I had saved every penny I needed, it just wasn't going to happen.

In December of 1999 I started working in a corporate travel department.  I wasn't an agent, so I hadn't expected any opportunities to travel.  The pay sucked, but it was work, and I had tanked school, so it was a welcomed change.  Other than the money I really liked that job--the people were a blast, and I was good at what I did.  I had only been working there a month or so when I heard the department was planning a "Fam Trip" to London.  I had NO idea what a Fam Trip was, but I KNEW I had to get in on it...