We are taught to spread our wings the second we leave the nest—a cliché, yes, but one that is heard often when college students leave home for the first time. I was drunk on independence, scoffing at the idea that I would miss home or my parents. It seemed to me that it was time to grow up, to move on, to experience life without my mom and dad standing over me.
A week into school, and I hadn't called my parents once. To me, this fact was a source of pride. "I don't need my parents help," I thought. I can do my laundry, clean my room, make mature decisions—all on my own. As weeks went by, however, I felt the homesickness hit me like a brick. You miss little things about home most of all: the luxury of your own, familiar bed, the ability to go barefoot in the shower, your dog's excitement when you walk through the front door, the painting you made when you were 5 that hangs on the refrigerator. For some reason, I felt like it was a weakness to miss this past life, the comfort I had felt in my little yellow house for 18 years.
When I did call my parents and younger brother, I almost started crying in the middle of the dining hall just because of the sound of their voices. I was so afraid that I couldn't handle being on my own that I forgot it's all right to need your parents sometimes. It is such a distinct shift—seeing your family every day and then seeing them only sporadically throughout the school year.
I finally visited home two weeks later, lugging my suitcase through the front door and wondering about every social event I was going to miss that weekend. I stood in my old room and felt that even though I was the same, I had changed as well. I wasn’t the same girl who lived here three months ago. However, as my family and I sat talking in the living room, eating Chinese takeout, I felt like my complete and whole self. My dad, trying not so discretely to read a newspaper under the table. My mom and I, discussing "House of Cards" because its “our show.” My brother, stuffing every possible morsel of Chinese food into his mouth. This was home.
College students shouldn’t be afraid to be nostalgic, to be homesick. It’s natural. Even though we have our independence now, we can’t forget those people who helped us along the way, who saw every bad facet and every good facet of ourselves. The people who made us chicken noodle soup when we were sick, who will always say they love you no matter what.
I talk to my parents on the phone all the time, now. My dad gives me Economics advice, my mom asks me about boys (and I try to change the subject), and my brother usually just says “hi” or “bye” or an occasional “yeah, I kind of miss you.” During every conversation, I’m reminded that I can be independent, but I’m not completely alone.
