As an incoming freshman, I had all of my cousins and older friends telling me how great college was going to be. They set me up with great ideas for how to get involved on campus, how to find a really great friend group and how to make sure I made it to all of my classes on time. What no one really prepared me for was how much I was going to miss home.

From the time I could walk on my own I was a very independent child. Making my own decisions, getting things done on my own, never really needed to ask for help. Coming from that background along with graduating from a private college preparatory school I thought that I would be so well equipped for leaving home...I was wrong.

My brother, who's three years older than me, was the first one to leave the house. I saw how hard it was on my parents having their first child leave home, but I never saw how it effected my brother. The majority of my cousins went to colleges either close enough to home where they could visit often or they commuted; I never got to see how "going away" effected them.

Move in day was stressful enough. Attempting to somehow fit all of my clothes and shoes in the space I was provided. Trying to make my side of the room feel a little more like home than just four white walls. And then my family left. All of the clutter I had been trying to deal with on my own while my mom, dad and brother all stood there trying to figure out how to help was still there; but they were gone...on the road back to my big house, with all the closet space I was lacking in my dorm room. For a while you're not too focused on the fact that they're gone. You have a bed to make and a closet to organize; mandatory orientation events to go to. But then you lay on your bed for the first five minutes of free time you have and you remember, and that's okay!

It's okay to want to be back in your own bed, in your own home, in your own town. You've just taken a huge step in your life that you are terribly unprepared for. Everything here is big and scary and uncomfortable, your bed is small and your walls are bare. Don't feel bad about wanting to call your mom even though she just left. For a lot of people, going away to college is the first time they're going out on their own for an extended period of time. I went home twice a month my first semester freshman year (granted I had just had surgery and had doctors appointments to go to). I'm about to finish my sophomore year and I still get homesick, and I've learned that that is okay.