As a first-year, a certain level of homesickness is acceptable. You’re allowed to talk about family, friends, local eateries and high school escapades. You’re allowed to cry a bit, especially when drunk, about your pet or the romantic partner you left behind.
I was miserably homesick my first year of college. I don’t think anyone could tell, but I was. I wanted nothing more to lay in my bed at home and eat my mom’s cooking. I didn’t love Kenyon for a really long time––and every time I started to love Kenyon, something knocked me down again. If it wasn’t the amount of homework, it was a bad interaction with a peer, or even later in the year, the seasonal affective disorder (S.A.D.) that hit hard and affected most of my attitude toward my new school.
However, after that first year (and really it’s more like the first three months of the first year) you’re not allowed to be homesick. In fact, you’re now not allowed to do anything with your summers but crave coming back to Kenyon––or your respective college. Speaking as a junior, I have never once wanted to come back to Kenyon early––I soak up every moment of my lazy, sunny air-conditioned summer.
Now obviously there are those students for whom Kenyon has truly become a better home than anything they’ve ever experienced previously. I do not mean any disrespect to them and hope that they always treasure Kenyon as a place of welcoming and wonderment. I’m not saying that Kenyon isn’t a home––it is. It’s just not my favorite one.
I love Kenyon––my professors, my college friends, my classes, the traditions––but Kenyon is also the source of ultimate stress in my life. Even on Saturdays, I never escape the need to do work, to study, or to be contacting someone about potential internships or job opportunities.
There’s an inexhaustible pressure put on every student at Kenyon and when that drains me, there’s not really anywhere to go to pull yourself back together because privacy is not something easily gained in college.
Wanting to be home in a private space never goes away. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a first-year or a senior––there is something about college and dorm life that never lets you escape the stress of schoolwork and constant social interaction.
For someone who identifies pretty strongly as an introvert and needs alone time to recharge, college is a never-ending battle of finding time to recharge without completely insulting everyone you know. At home, my family already knew and would leave me alone when they could sense I needed an hour or two to just relax and listen to music.
Additionally, you never stop craving those homey high school places––that coffee shop or that one boutique you loved or the Sonic that was the host of so many late-night meet-ups. I miss Friday night football games and Sunday morning biscuits. I miss the pale pink walls of my bedroom, the record player that sits in the corner and the big blue couch of my rec room.
However, if you do want to break-up with homesickness (or at least alleviate it), here’s a few tips:
1. Get off campus!
Honestly, take the shuttle or go with a friend––eat dinner, wander through Walmart, hit up the Cold Stone Creamery. You don’t have to spend any money but sometimes removing yourself from the Kenyon bubble helps you mentally process that there are commonalities between your hometown and Mount Vernon/Gambier.
2. Go to Friday Cafe.
I know I’m talking a lot about food, but for me, Kenyon food was the first reason for my homesickness. Have a home-cooked meal and you’ll feel tons better––or at least, a little less stressed out.
3. Don’t be afraid to do what you did at home.
With all respect to your roommate, if you always got ready listening to music, go for it! If you were always taught to roll your towels instead of folding, you do you! If you always drank Sprite at home, stock your fridge!
4. Try to find other Kenyon students from your hometown/general area of the world.
I know that depending on where you’re from, this might be difficult or very easy. But there’s always something relaxing about someone knowing the same high schools or coffee shops, or even better, people that you do. Plus it gives your non-hometown Kenyon friends a break from listening.
5. DECORATE!
Too many people try to make their room seem cool when your room should look and feel like you. Embrace the weird posters you’ve brought with you because they’ve hung in your bedroom for the past five years. Don’t feel the need to get a new comforter. Bring as many photos of old friends, family and hometown locales as you want.
I want to encourage everyone to admit their homesickness, regardless of their year or their friends. There’s too much pressure put on students to love Kenyon every single second of every single day, most often because of the rather immense price-tag attached. Sometimes things are bad, sometimes everything is too much and sometimes you just want to be home––something that Kenyon is often not.
It’s okay to want to be at home. It’s okay to not think of Kenyon as home. It’s okay to have a love-hate relationship with Kenyon.
Image Credit: Regan Hewitt