Homesick

I’ve now spent a week living at Brown.  I really like it here.  I’ve made new friends, I’ve been learning a lot, and this experience has just made me realize how badly I want to go to college.  However, this experience has also made me realize the things in my life that I really care about. 

I don’t usually get homesick.  I’ve been to sleep away camps and been totally fine.  This is different.  I think that, because of the relationships I have been building over the past three years in high school and the maturing of the relationships I already had, I’ve never before been in a position of having so much to miss.  Sure, I’m here with my best friend and we do a lot of stuff together, but I would like to think I have more than one best friend.  All the people who I love spending time with and who make my life more enjoyable who are back home have never beckoned stronger.  I miss my family too.  I had to miss out on a family trip to a place that I have gone to every year for as long as I can remember, and getting the pictures from my parents who were there really hit home.  This feeling is extremely foreign to me, and is, in all honesty, a little scary.  Then there’s my girlfriend.  I have never met someone who has matched me so perfectly and made my life so amazing, and even when I’m home, being away from her is horrible.  This trip, in that respect, is torture. 

Last night is when all this hit me.  I was sitting in my room and texting my girlfriend after coming home from my friend’s dorm, and I realized that I’ve been here for a week.  That means I’m a third of the way done.  And then I felt all the longing for what I left behind all at once.  It hadn’t occurred to me yet what I was missing at home, and it overcame me emotionally.  I realized that I would have to endure this for another two weeks, twice as long as the amount of time I’ve been here already.

Despite the pain of longing, I think this is a very good learning experience for me.  Being taken away from the things you love really gives you perspective on what matters to you, and what doesn’t.  It also is a taste of the coming attractions in my life.  As much as I don’t want to, I’m going to have to leave behind my friends and family for the majority of my time when I go to college.  I will be forced to make new friends and fit in again.  And I will have responsibilities that I may not want to have, just like I do now. 

Despite the fact that I am now horribly aware of how much I miss the things in my life that I’ve temporarily given, I am also aware of what I am supposed to be doing here and why I am here.  This is an opportunity to experience things I never have before and to learn new things and to meet new people.  My class is awesome, the material we are learning is really giving me a whole new perspective on current events, I’m meeting amazing new people, and I’m having fun.  I think I’m fulfilling the requirements perfectly.