How College Prepared Me for Being Homesick

She’s homesick. He’s homesick. We’re all homesick. Luckily, Thanksgiving break is right around the corner. But, sometimes being homesick is a blessing in disguise. 

As a junior, you’d think college’s good pal Mr. Homesickness wouldn’t affect me anymore, but it does. This is not exactly the worst thing in the world for me, though. I’m not going to say I like it, nor wish it upon someone else, but being homesick has helped me grow up in a way that I don’t think I would have otherwise.

For starters, it taught me to toughen up. Every time I leave my home, I turn around and stare meaningfully at it, touching the window and pretending like I’m in a sad movie. I just do that for fun now, but, before, I was hurting more than I’d like to admit. After awhile, I accepted that it was inevitable I would feel some pain every time I left. I took a deep breath and thought, I’m okay right? I’m not a kid anymore. So, it’s time to begin a different life.

After I got over my dramatic I-can’t-function-without-my-mom phase, I realized that I have the power to make a home anywhere. Why not miss State College as much I miss my hometown? Yeah, I had years on years of memories with my family, my friends and my whole childhood back home, but I have a life here too that wants to make its own memories. Once I started thinking like this, I got attached. The same thinking helped me over the summer as well, just in a different place with different people. Knowing that home will still be there when I get back helps, too. The butterflies you feel as you pull into your neighborhood after weeks or months of not being home are worth the whole “leaving” thing. Believe me. 

I used to want to work no more than ten minutes from my house so that I could still have dinner with my parents every night. (I still wouldn’t be opposed to having a meal cooked for me every night). But now, I’m not scared to take a job in a different city. I’ve left home once, I can totally do it again. Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy. 

Dorothy was right, “There’s no place like home,” but I say, get your butt out there and find some people and places to make worth missing.