If my first year away from home has taught me anything, it’s that being away from the people I love is more difficult than I ever thought possible.
I realized about a week into my first semester that I had never been away from my family for more than three weeks. My sisters and I haven’t gone more than a few weeks without seeing each other. My boyfriend and I had never gone more than a week without one another since we started dating. It was painful and confusing all at once. I didn’t know how to deal with the feeling because it was unlike anything I had ever felt before.
Everyone I love is just one phone call or text away, but it still felt like I was stranded all alone without the people that I have known and found comfort in for my whole life. My first few nights away from home, before I went to sleep, I would think to myself, “I should go say goodnight to my sisters before I go to bed,” only to realize that they weren’t down the hallway from me anymore.
Remembering that I’m not home with them anymore breaks my heart every time.
Even still, I feel lost without everyone back at home. I feel a sense of guilt for leaving. I can’t watch my sisters navigate middle school and high school. I can’t be there for my boyfriend when he needs me most. I can’t help my parents around the house anymore. My mom tells me it’s weird to not have me around anymore, but I think this whole thing is even weirder for me. I feel alienated, isolated, and sometimes, even forgotten. I wonder if my presence is truly missed like I miss theirs.
I wonder if my dogs miss playing with me, I wonder if my sisters miss staying up late and talking, I wonder if my parents miss me telling them all about my day in the evening. As a kid, I couldn’t wait to get away from home and gain my independence, but now that I am on my own, I would do anything to go back. Being away has presented an array of new emotions that I didn’t know existed. I have gotten better at navigating each feeling, letting it pass, and learning to live without being around the people I love most.
Missing someone is one of the worst and best feelings all at once. Yearning for a person’s presence while not being able to be in it is painful, and everyone has experienced it. But missing someone is the only true proof that love exists. It is proof that love extends beyond physical presence but that it is carried with you everywhere you go.