home
noun \ ˈhōm \
Popularity: Top 20% of words
Definition of home
1 a: one’s place of residence: domicile
· has been away from home for two weeks
· a place to call home
b: house
· several homes for sale in the area
I’ve found that the idea of “home” gets more and more vague the older you get. The first definition of “home” that pops up on the Merriam-Webster dictionary is “one’s place of residence”. And yes, for a time, “home” to me was simply the place I lived in—the rain-soaked house in quiet suburbia that held all my crayons and stuffed animals. “Home” was the place where my parents and my brother were, the place where I’d grown up, and the only place I’d really known. But then, with age came a sort of disillusionment. All the international phone calls, the holidays spent without my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, all the “I-miss-you”s and indefinite “I’ll visit next year”s, and all the video calls with crappy audio quality accumulated into an emotion I could only describe as “homesickness”, even though I’d always associated my house with my home. I realized that there’s so much more to a “home” than just four walls and a roof overhead.
Because of school and travel costs, I haven’t seen my family in two years (though when I was younger, the time between visits was even longer). To me, saying that feels just like saying, “I haven’t been home in two years.” It sucks.
I have friends that hang out at their grandparents’ houses over the weekends and go hiking with their cousins all the time. I have friends that go shopping with their aunts every day and friends that watch football games with their uncles at least twice a month. But if I want to visit my family (my home?) I have to fly more than ten hours across the ocean.
During the holidays, this feeling of homesickness is especially strong. Everyone’s celebrating at home, but the best I can do is video call and wonder what I’m missing out on.
So please, cherish every moment with your loved ones this holiday season (or any season, really). They say, “Home is where the heart is”. It’s true. And because of this, there are so many people—out-of-state students, international students, immigrants, to name a few—who are missing home right now, because their hearts are elsewhere. The house they sleep in simply cannot be compared to the “home” that is their family and friends.
To my fellow students suffering from homesickness, just know that no matter where you are or where you come from, your loved ones are always thinking of you, and you will always be able to find your way back home.