“You’ll never be homesick, especially not your first semester,” my mom told me before I went off to college, “you’ll be doing so much that you’ll never have time to feel homesick.”
She was right... in a way. There was never a point where I felt any large amount of despair because I wasn’t able to go home.
I don’t walk into the dining hall every day thinking how nice it would be to be eating a home cooked meal instead. I don’t get into bed every night wishing I was home in my own room.
But occasionally I do. I wonder what it would be like to eat real eggs again, or to sleep in a room where I can’t hear police sirens and car horns every few seconds. I wonder what it would be like to be able to be in my own bathroom and my own bed whenever I’m up late with a stomach ache and can’t sleep. I wonder what it would be like to be just a couple of footsteps away from my family instead of hours
I wonder what it would be like to be able to talk to my friends face-to-face instead of having to skype to get some sort of semblance of closeness.
It’s nights that the weather is nice that I remember driving around with my sister, singing along to songs with the windows down. Just enjoying the night.
It’s the little things I miss. The sound of a rope banging on a metal flagpole reminds me of home, as do certain cents or colors I happen to come across. A specific song will bring me back to a specific moment in the car with my dad, or it’ll remind me of many different times we heard the song while doing something else.
And it’s small things that make so much of an impact. Like the fact that my phone has marked my dorm building as “home.” Even though I insist that no, this is not my home.
But a strange thing happens no matter how much I repeat that to myself.
Even though this is not my home, I still miss it when I’m not here.
Because the same problems occur. Although when I’m home I can easily see my family and my friends at home, I’m no longer anywhere near any of my friends from college. I can no longer see them in person whenever I want to just by walking a few doors down the hallway. I no longer have a bunch of people excited about the same things I’m excited about all within reach. I no longer have at least five or six of my friends always ready to eat a meal with me or help me learn to do the homework.
It’s strange because even though this is not my home, I’ve learned to miss it like it almost is.
I guess I’ve just reached that point in my life where I’ll be perpetually homesick for somewhere that I’m not.
