For a lot of people going away for college is a must. They decide that no matter what they want to go as far away as possible. Broaden their horizons. For others they decide that they rather stay at home through college. They continue to eat their Mom's home cooked meals every night and relish in the fact that whenever they want they can plop on the couch with Dad and watch football. Then there's us in the middle. We want to go away for school, but not too far. Or we have separated parents and have to maneuver that whole obstacle. Or those of us that decide to go somewhere new on the search to better our lives. To do more and go further than our parents might have had the opportunity to.
No matter the reason. A lot of us end up at college on our own, or testing the water.
People warn about college students getting all sorts of diseases and sicknesses; measles, mumps, STDs, senioritis. But people don't always talk about the sickness that in most of us is present: home sickness. Merriam Webster defines sickness as unhealthy condition of the body or mind or (my favorite) the feeling you have in your stomach before you think you're going to vomit. Being home sick is so common that you'll find college students driving 4+ hours home just for the weekend. Or students like me that will spend every penny of their savings on an impulse to buy a plane ticket before classes start.
It starts innocently; you call your parents, grandparents or whoever once a week. You give updates, tell them how class is going, or about work. Then it gets close to midterms; you feel like you're sinking and you are starting to get concerned about your class load. You start to worry if you're going to make it and you wish you could just eat some of your Dad's grilled creations, because no hot dog tastes as good as the one Dad makes. Now it's close to the holidays; you don't know if you'll be able to get off work or be able to afford to go home. At this point your home sickness has evolved into a big mass of angst in the pit of your stomach.
This process varies, some people it just takes a few days away from their families, for others we go almost a year without seeing our relatives. If only time would stop. Our siblings, parents, and grandparents would just stop aging until we could come home. But life doesn't work that way. The Earth keeps spinning and days continue to pass.
When being home sick starts to set in, there's not much that can be done about it. Except to remind ourselves why we're doing what we're doing. Not only are you going to school to better ourselves, but our future as well. College is an investment not only in time and money, but in memories. Though right now feeling home sick doesn't feel worth it, one day when our children go off to college they'll be able to look back and see that it's possible. And it will all be over soon. The we can continue begging our parents for food, but calling ourselves adults at the same time.
