When I first started this blog, I didn't intend to make it quite as Oberlin-centric as the past few posts have been; instead, I wanted to discuss the challenges and benefits of being far away from home during the "college experience." One of the things that I wished I had found in the college search was an account of what I could expect from the first year of college. There seems to be so much written about how to get into college, but the amount of material on the college adjustment is left to books like The Naked Roommate or individual forum posts.
I Skyped my best friend today. She's living at home and going to school at a state college, and we're both feeling the distance... I used to be three blocks away, now it's two thousand miles. I don't know what I would do without Skype, cell phones, and texting to keep up with my close friends and my parents at home.
Even so, when I was talking to my best friend and her mom popped by to ask whether I was missing home, I didn't know what to say. Perhaps this is because I've usually been okay with sleep-away camps/traveling without my parents, but I've never really gotten homesick. In the last few days, I've kept a little more to myself. I can't say that I'm homesick exactly, but my cat, my parents, my friends... I'm feeling the absence more than usual.
Today especially - my hall made dumplings in the tiny dorm kitchen, and I couldn't help but compare the action of cooking in Dascomb to cooking at home. I missed the counter space and the gas stove from my kitchen, as well as having access to little things like large-sized kitchen knives to shred cabbage with.
Yet even with my slightly-more-melancholy attitude these last few days, I'm not homesick. I miss home, but I'm not desperate to return. I think one of the reasons I've been feeling a little down lately is the amount of stuff I'm not doing: because I've had papers to write and homework to do, this weekend has consisted largely of me sitting in my dorm room or in the library, procrastinating. In those moments of not being busy, I focus more on how I used to do homework on the couch with my cat sleeping on my feet.
My solution for this is continuing to be busy. I'm watching more movies, re-reading books - anything so that I'm not just surfing the internet looking at Maru videos. If you're in the same situation I was a year ago - applying to colleges across the nation but worrying about the separation all the same - then all I can say is yes, you will miss home. However, missing home is manageable - talk to your parents for twenty minutes a day between classes or after dinner, text your friends when you wake up so that they have a message waiting for them when they get up (although this only works if you're further east than your friends), find a place in town to go when you need a kitten to cuddle.
It's normal to miss home. It's also normal to be off gallivanting around your fascinating new campus. Striking a balance is the hard part.
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