From what I can tell, it means a yearning for home and hearth - but more than that.
Today I spent the afternoon with my lovely ex-family-in-law. They are alternately warm, loving, hostile, and just plain odd.
But the discussion is always intellectually stimulating and interesting. I yearn for that. I yearn for someone to hold my hand or lean against at family events. I yearn for an extended family. I yearn for a group of people who would help me shoulder this burden I carry concealed within myself.
My growing up family is around, in their way. As in, not really!
It speaks to me that my ex-husband's family knows more about me than my own siblings. Oddly, they care more. I will always owe them my heart for this.
But with my new friends and associates, I daren't share the fears I feel, or the sorrows I feel, or the MS, as it is all so terribly boring in its infinite variability. The endless explanations of how I can be fine one day, wrecked the next....the trying to explain the hidden disabilities...without letting people think I am totally broken and thus not worth getting to know. Even people who know me for some time don't get it - how can they, when I don't, myself?
But I yearn for that insensible, relaxed support that is there even when not asked for. Yep, hiraeth seems a likely word. Along with anomie.
"IT IS DIFFICULT TO DEFINE HIRAETH, BUT TO ME IT MEANS THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF MAN BEING OUT OF HIS HOME AREA AND THAT WHICH IS DEAR TO HIM. THAT IS WHY IT CAN BE FELT EVEN AMONG A HOST OF PEOPLES AMIDST NATURE'S BEAUTY; LIKE A CHRISTIAN YEARNING FOR HEAVEN." --D. MARTYN LLOYD JONES
