When freshmen embark on the first semester of their college careers, one of three things undoubtedly occurs: They forget their families at home exist, they become incredibly homesick and call them every night or they cheerfully manage to keep up relationships with their families while also balancing and enjoying school like an ultimate pro. Kudos to those who can swing that. We’ve all been through that tough first break from the comfort of home, whether it’s hardest breaking away from your family, your friends or just your pet. College is always an adjustment period.
Personally, when I first arrived at UF, I became a sobbing homesick mess and called my mom every other night. I holed up in my bed like a gnome afraid of sunlight and new college experiences. This feeling of intense homesickness was really new for me because I’d been away from home before — often for long periods. The year before, I’d traveled halfway across the world for two months without batting an eyelash or crying a single homesick tear. But when I was living only four hours away from home at UF … bring on the waterworks.
Of course, this changed as I got used to college, got involved and made new friends. I’d like to let anybody who is suffering from homesickness now know this — it does get easier, and it does change. For me, it changed so much that by the middle of this semester, with a full course load and a mountain of extra things to do which hungrily eat up my time and energy, I am only calling my family and friends at home perhaps once every three weeks.
Unfortunately, this isn’t actually healthier than becoming a homesick gnome. My family is tightly knit. I have two wonderful sisters that I’d like to remain close with for rest of my life. It’s important to me to keep up that connection, and in college it’s easy to forget how much time has passed. It’s easy to miss how much might have changed in the lives of those you love when suddenly you don’t speak to them every day.
Whether it’s family, friends, a partner, an organization you were part of or your loyal and lovable puppy, we all have things and people special to us that we’ve left behind to come here to UF and shape our futures. This is true if you hail from across the country, overseas or only 30 minutes from Gainesville.
Sometimes, when the haze of homesickness has lifted and we feel comfortable in our place and with our goals, we can lose sight of the relationships and the bonds we forged for the first 18 years of our lives.
Recently, I came across an article in the New York Times titled “Forty Portraits in Forty Years” written by Susan Minot. The article is about a photography project by Nicholas Nixon made up of 40 different photographs of four sisters taken every year spanning from 1975 to present day. The article was well written, but the portraits were especially enthralling. The photographs illustrate the closeness the sisters have maintained their whole lives, but they also tell the reader a story about the human condition — connections to other people are important and worth safeguarding. In every picture, the sisters age, but their relationships with each other never seem to fade.
In college, selfishly wrapped up in our own problems and activities, we can forget to nurture the relationships we’ve formed with loved ones in the past, often because we are so busy building networks with new people. Sometimes, we — myself included — need a reminder to treasure and maintain these bonds. We should make an effort not to forget about the connections we’ve made with important people in our lives and remember that every relationship we create can be meaningful.
Sally Greider is a UF English and public relations sophomore. Her columns appear on Tuesdays.
[A version of this story ran on page 6 on 10/14/2014]
