As many of you know, I was born in California and moved to Pennsylvania at the age of 10. I have spent half my life in CA and half my life in PA, which in itself is an amazing experience. I have had the privilege of experiencing both ‘cultures’ and, of course, very different climates.
Anyway, I decided to go back to California for college but struggled with being so far from home [Pennsylvania]. Several factors went into my homesickness: my boyfriend goes to college in Philadelphia, my parents (who I love spending time with) are in PA, my cozy room is in PA, my favorite restaurants are in PA… the list continues. However, I think every college student hits a point where they start calling their dorm room ‘home’ and that’s when you know things are okay.
I say this because I started referring to my school and my tiny dorm room as home. I remember experiencing this when I moved to PA; I never knew what to call our new house because I wasn’t used to it being home.
That being said, I began to realize that things are okay. When people asked, “Oh Gilly, how’s school?” I used to lie and say things were going well but truthfully I was struggling more than I wanted to let on. My automated response stated, “Well, it’s definitely an adjustment being away from home but things are going great!” I guess that wasn’t a lie, it WAS an adjustment being away from home, but I nearly felt like I was trying to convince myself that things were going okay….