Homesickness

University was my first time away from home and I had never been homesick before. I didn't expect to cry when my parents left for good. It was a feeling I'd never experienced, and was not expecting. Even though I had already made some friends, I was a mess and had never felt so lonely.

I just wasn't used to all the partying, all the running around from event to event, being surrounded by new people all the time, all the late late nights and early mornings. I even had thoughts about transferring to a school closer to home. I also thought that I was the only person feeling this way. It helped to be open to the friends I had just made; being with them made the feelings go away somewhat and they were really supportive. Lots of them were feeling the same and I wouldn’t have made it if it weren’t for them.

But still, I couldn't wait to go home that first weekend and be with the friends I'd known all my life. I even missed a huge concert with a popular band to go home. I was scared, though, that I wouldn’t want to come back.

My parents came to pick me up, and as soon as we turned down the familiar roads leading to my house, I suddenly wasn't homesick anymore. I thought, "Why did I miss this so much? I was so excited to get away." And from then on I was never homesick again, even though I did call my mom every day at first and kept in contact with my friends from home. But by the end of the year, those daily phone calls had turned into weekly ones.

So, the moral of the story is that homesickness is a normal feeling that everyone will experience at some point and that you may be scared and uncertain. But trust me, by the end of the year when it's time to move out of residence and go back home, you're not going to want to go, and you'll miss it.