I’m from Long Island and I go to school at the University of Dayton. From my house to my school that is 663 miles and ten and a half hours (Thanks Google maps!) that actually turns into about twelve hours with food and gas stops. You get it, that’s a massively long way to be away from home. So, naturally, when I meet someone on my campus from Long Island, or even lower New York, I get unnecessarily excited to meet them.

Moving from Long Island to the Midwest was one of the most disorienting things I’ve ever done. The lifestyle here in Dayton is just different. I can’t always put my finger on it, but it’s just different. There’s less traffic, people talk differently, they call soda pop… Or, God forbid, they call it sodapop… Cringe… It’s just weird.

So, that’s why it’s so amazing when I run into someone from back home! One of my friends is from New Jersey and, everyone knows how New Yorkers and New Jerseyites don’t always get along or think the best of each other, but there is a bond between us over bagels, pizza, real beaches and real diners that none of our other friends can ever fully understand.

Being over 600 miles away from home, it is a rare occasion when I find someone else from the northeast to revel in the weirdness that is living in the northwest, and there is an instant connection between us that can’t truly be explained. However, as I’m closing out my third year of college, I’m coming to realize that there are more Long Islanders here at Dayton that I initially thought, which is a good and a bad thing.

It's good because there are more people here that I can drone on and on about missing the beach with. It’s bad because that means my dad was right when I was a freshman and he wanted nothing more than for me to find a ride home for breaks and I insisted that there weren’t that many people from Long Island on campus.

Sorry, Dad… You miiiiiight have been right… 😊

Even though I’m realizing that there are way more people from home here than I realized, I still can’t hold in my excitement when I meet someone knew who understands the struggle of coming back from summer and having to endure the constant jokes about how you “Sound just like the Long Island Medium” because you’ve been surrounded by the stereotypical Long Island accent for three and a half months.

There’s no place like home, and there’s truly no place like Long Island, so when I meet someone from home when we’re 600 miles away, they become my new best friend at that moment. No one understands missing Long Island like a fellow Long Islander experiencing the same home-sickness I do when I’m away at school.

See you in two weeks, Long Island! I miss you!