“Don’t you know it’s, like, cold in Chicago?”
This was often the reaction I got when I told people back home that I was leaving San Diego to go to DePaul for college. Once I got to DePaul the reaction was more like, “Why the hell would you leave San Diego to come here?”
After hearing this so much my first couple weeks in Chicago, I started to ask myself that same question. I came down with the homesickness bug three weeks after moving in and then that question became a constant thought in my head. All I could think about was that I wouldn’t see my dog or my family for three months, I would soon be freezing my ass off, and I missed having privacy in the comfort of my own room. So why did I leave California to come to DePaul?
I’ve quickly learned that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side. All four years of high school I was dead set on going to college across the country because growing up in the same place for 18 years got really old. I was sick of seeing the same people and the same places all the time. I wanted something new in a city I wasn’t used to, but just because I was leaving California didn’t mean life would just magically get better.
Where you are and how happy you are in that place is up to you a lot of the time. Just because you’re unhappy in one place doesn’t mean that you’ll be any happier once you leave. I never thought I would be the type of person to get so homesick that all I wanted to do was lay in bed and cry for a few days. I never thought I would miss home so much. But in a way, that’s the point of college. You need to get out and see new things. You need to experience what it’s like to miss something so much it hurts. You need to experience something other than what you’re accustomed to.
That’s why I left sunny-and-75-degrees-all-year-round San Diego, California. I needed to learn that the grass isn’t greener in Chicago, but it’s what I make of the current situation I’m in. I needed to experience something different than what I’ve been used to for 18 years. I needed to be put out of my comfort zone for the first time in my life.
San Diego will always be my home, but it will always be there waiting for me. Chicago is here now, and it’s what I make it out to be. The grass may not be greener here, but it’s a completely different shade, and I think I’m starting to really love the color.