I don’t care who you are, anyone who has moved away from home for college (or anything else for that matter) has dealt with homesickness. We try to be big boys and girls and pretend like we don’t, but we all do. It’s okay that you miss home. We all have those moments where we wish we could eat at our favorite local restaurant, go to that basketball game to watch our friends, or talk to our teachers just one more time. So here are some tips on what you should do when these feelings arise.
1. Stop Going Home So Much
This is a hard one to swallow. Usually, I see that when kids are miserably homesick, they try to compensate by going home every weekend. I can’t speak for everyone and say that this will definitely make everything worse, but for me, it certainly would. Sometimes, the last thing I need is to go home. It just makes me miss being home even more. It has helped me adjust by going long stretches without going home. My mom isn’t always happy about that, but it makes me feel more like I actually moved out.
2. Find Something Productive To Do
This is crucial. When those feelings of homesickness start to come on, it’s easy to sit and wallow. That’s the worst thing you can do. Instead, find something to do. It’s easy when you have school work to do. If not, anything will suffice. Go for a run, hang out with friends, or take up a hobby. Just do anything to keep yourself busy. As a side note, sometimes when I feel homesick, I buy myself something that I want. Nothing too expensive – maybe a movie or a book I want to read. That can be dangerous, but it helps.
3. Keep In Contact With People From Home
This may seem contradictory to my first point, but it’s actually not. Rather than subjecting yourself to making the physical trip home every week, just call. You can call whenever you want for the most part and it will usually do just as well in making you feel better. Sometimes, all you need is to hear a familiar voice.
4. Realize That Things Would Still Be Different At Home
This is really important. If you just graduated high school and are struggling with the giant transition of moving on to college both school-wise and geographically, you might be missing high school. You might miss the sporting events, knowing everyone around, or just how easy high school was in general. You can never go back to that. Even if you still lived at home, everything would be different. Many of your friends would’ve moved away and you just wouldn’t be a high schooler anymore. It’s hard, but it’s best to just accept that life is different.
5. Embrace The New
I realize that many of these have been the hard truth realities of moving out. But this is a little more optimistic. You’re in a new place now! That means that there is infinite new opportunities and experiences waiting to be had. There are new people to meet and new things to do. You can either sit around and bum out about not being at home, or you can make the best out of being where you are.
I’m not super experienced with this, but I have lived away from home for a few months now. This is all the advice I can give you. If you’ve already experienced this homesickness, then you probably know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, it’s coming. The best thing you can do is be honest with yourself and try to keep an open mind to all the new stuff going on around you. If you blink, you’ll miss it.
