The homesickness and empty-nest syndrome
To be honest, I thought I would be so much more homesick than I really was. There were nights that I missed my own bed with my puppy snuggling close, my mom’s homemade comfort food, and the coziness of my own home for sure, but I think that we all anticipate the struggle of homesickness as much larger than it turns out to be. You make a new home there in your tiny dorm room, and a second family is created amongst you and your closest friends. Home is really where the heart is, but it’s possible for your heart to be in many different places at once. Now that I’m home from school on summer break, I feel this nagging homesick feeling for my school and my second family, my friends. No matter where you go, you will long for the places you grew up. Growing up doesn’t always have to mean physically growing older, but where your experiences made you emotionally grow up too. My mom’s “empty-nest syndrome,” as she would call it, could be best described as going from having my constant loudness and dramatic episodes, which I’m still convinced that she misses when I’m gone, to having the house extremely boring and quiet. There’s no one to leave dirty plates on the coffee table, no one to forget to put the milk back in the fridge, and no one to scream bloody murder over a spider being in the shower.
