Everyone has those moments during their childhood when their six-year-old selves wished to get older quicker. Being an adult seemed so cool to us back then; it was as if there was an entirely different world we had yet explored. It's because of that mysterious quality that we were captivated. The desire was more prevalent when we were teenagers because we wanted to leave Papa Bear and Mama Bear's den so, so badly. After years of being "one of the adults" (but barely so), I can safely say that, to some extent, we were dead wrong.
When I first went to college, I honestly didn't think homesickness would get to me; I thought I would be too busy to give second thoughts about my family, especially since they were only an hour away. But I still made an effort to call or video chat at least every other day. It was nice hearing their voices or seeing their smiles whenever I needed a little pick-me-up from a tiring day. I soon learned from my other housemates that they didn't do it nearly as much; maybe once a week, twice at most. I started to think that I was the weird one, that I was being too dependent and thus tried to ween myself off of the calls, excusing myself that I had a lot of work to do (which was half true). I wanted to prove to myself that I could be a student who didn't rely on her family for immediate connection and gratification.
Within the last two months of the semester, I was experiencing a lot of stress but still limited myself to calling back home once a week. I told my family about all of the fun times I had on campus and, knowing very well that my mom was still having a hard time due to Empty Nest Syndrome (as was my dad and sister, which I found out during winter break), neglected to vent any anxiety that I was having over grades and just getting used to being on my own a lot of the time. I didn't want them to worry and I didn't want to break my streak. It wasn't until finals week that I finally cracked. Tensions were high and my mind was running amok from all of the exams I had to study for and papers to write. It was during that one video call, when I broke down into tears and kept saying, "I miss you guys," and "I want to go home," that I realized I had taken the wrong approach.
I learned that independency and dependency aren't entirely black and white; in my case, there's no fine line between the two and I shouldn't have thought about it as such. I blame myself for trying to "grow up" too quickly in too short of a time because being able to handle things on your own, on this kind of scale, is a process. And, in retrospect, I'm still young and have decades ahead of me to work on it. It's nice to be independent but it's also nice to go back to your roots and just stay there for a bit.
What I'm trying to say is that we should stop wanting to grow up so much. Try to go back to the time when our ages were in the single digits, when we didn't truly notice the things that we care about right this minute. Even for a moment, let's be kids again.
