An internal longing I can't ignore.

A few weeks ago on the eve on my brother's wedding my mum and myself were having a very deep and heartfelt conversation. She told me "when you left that day, I knew you weren't going to come back". She was referring to the day that I packed up my belongings and moved to Bristol for university, leaving my small Welsh village behind. This struck a chord with me because she said it with such despair. When I was leaving that day I was so glad to be leaving the small village and moving on to a big city, I hadn't even given it a thought that it was an awful thing for my parents to go through.

I did really believe that I had left for good. I started university and a brand new chapter in my life. But in truth, for the first six months or so, I absolutely hated the city. It was so different to what I'd been brought up with that I felt uncomfortable and alone. But, in the back of my mind I convinced myself that I didn't want to go back to that village and it's way of life and forced myself to embrace the city culture.

After the initial wobble, I began to fall in love with the place and I stayed in Bristol for 6 years. In that time, I made some amazing friends, had amazing adventures, learnt so many new things and I met my husband through a mutual friend. We bought our first house in Bristol and that's where I wanted to stay. Our friends, work and lives were Bristol through and through. To us, it was home.

In that time I obviously visited my parents and the village and enjoyed every moment of being there. I always looked forward to going 'home' (the village) but was also glad to cross the bridge and return to the city.

In my 6th year in Bristol my husband was offered a job down south and taking it was a huge gamble. We sold our house, left our friends and our jobs and welcomed our 'new beginning' with open arms. We thought that this new opportunity would make our lives easier and complete and for a while it did. We had been trying for a baby for around 18 months in Bristol but with no success. To our surprise, just a few months after moving down south we found out we were having IQ. We thought that we'd make the right decision in moving and that our current 'home' would be the ideal place to bring up a little one.

When IQ was born we realised just how far we were from family and friends. Before we moved it was just a quick 45 minute drive to my parents or a 2.5 hour drive to hubby's mum, it was now 3 and 6 hours respectively. I felt so alone when IQ arrived. On days where I was exhausted and just wanted mum to come over, look after IQ while I had a bath and a sleep, she couldn't. Well, she did actually. She drove the 3 hours once a week to see us. It was then that I realised how selfish we'd been. We dropped everything to move to a city we both have come to dislike, making it so hard for family and friends to visit and isolating ourselves in the process. It was a gamble that hadn't payed off emotionally.

When IQ was around 3 months old it hit me. A whopping big wake up call. I had a longing. A longing that I never ever EVER thought I was going to have. I wanted to be in that little village. The one I'd left all those years ago vowing never to return.

I always looked back at the village and the people in it and felt sad for some that had never left. What a stupid judgement that was. I was sat in my lonely city, in my lonely house with my gorgeous daughter and I just wanted to go 'home'.

So here I sit, with this nagging feeling and I'm being drawn to go back to that village, back to my parents and friends. Back home. But what can I do? We took out our mortgage just 18 months ago, my husband is in the job that we dropped everything for and I'm sad, lonely and isolated.