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Student Reflections

Fighting off Homesickness

Megan Baumgarten
November 24, 2021
Homesick girl looking out window drinking tea

Getting to the end of my study abroad trip feels surreal. I’m starting to call my parents and count down the days until I get to sit on the couch with them again, see my dog again, hug my mom and dad and be in my own bed. Just thinking about it makes me want to cry sometimes. There it is readers, homesickness. 

It’s an unfortunate part of this whole experience, wanting to be home so badly. I almost feel guilty for it. So many students around the world have had their study abroad experiences cut short due to the pandemic, or have never been outside of their home country and here I am whining about wanting to go back to mine? But I’m here to tell you, and myself, that this is okay. 

Homesickness is one of the first topics Northeastern told me about to watch for. It starts off by seeing how gray the weather is, and boy does London have a lot of that. Then, I’m sitting in my bed all day on the first Saturday I’ve stayed in London because somehow the bed feels so much better than going to explore. I would tell myself it’s just exhaustion from traveling so much or working so hard in school, and sure, it is to some degree. But it is also missing home so much it almost feels paralyzing. 

As a psychology major, I know myself and my subject to know that sometimes it’s best to be patient and kind to myself. On the day I couldn’t get out of bed, and it was rainy, and all of my friends were gone anyway, I spent the day scrolling through Instagram (another tip they recommended we don’t do, whoops). I am in this weird limbo of wanting to be kind to myself but also wanting to push myself out of this rut. Sometimes a little push, saying yes to an outing even when I don’t feel like it, can be really helpful. So that is what I did all week. 

My friends were mostly gone for Reading Week as a vacation, but due to my own midterm schedule I couldn’t. This just added to the stress and homesickness. I spent most of my mornings sleeping until 11am (very rare for me) and then the afternoons in the library, where I am right now. I would do my best to say yes to things, but sometimes all I needed was to stay in the most familiar places I could. I longed for the familiarity of home. 

Home is a really odd concept to me. Home can be so many different things, depending on how we identify it ourselves. For me, home is the concept of the people I care about. My parents, my sister, my dog and cat, my boyfriend, my friends at Northeastern. Texting my friends in my sorority and hearing about their adventures, wanting to be my friend’s semi-formal date because that was our tradition. 

Watching the holidays go by and expecting another soon doesn’t help one bit. Halloween felt lonely despite being in Budapest because of the lack of traditions. My halloween traditions include always getting NY Pizza on the corner of Columbus Ave and Mass Ave with my best friend. We always match costumes. With the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, it is so jolting for London to shift from halloween to immediately Christmas. There are Christmas lights and posters of shows already up. I realize why London wouldn’t celebrate Thanksgiving, obviously, but it does make me miss home even more. 

Talking to my mom and dad both helps, but is also somehow bittersweet. I’m talking to them about my plans for New Years Eve, and asking them about their plans for Thanksgiving. My family has a tradition of making Christmas cookies a few days after Thanksgiving, something that I won’t be able to do this year. By the time I go home, the Christmas cookies may be all gone. 

Even with these sad thoughts, I want to make the best out of my situation here, even when sometimes it is hard. I try to keep my room tidy, and do my best to socialize with my friends who were here for Reading Week. When I’m not socializing with my friends here, I am focusing on school, and the future, and planning a trip to Amsterdam if the new Netherlands lockdown allows me.  The reality is that sometimes being far away from home is just sad, and the guilt of feeling sad for being somewhere that is a dream to both me and others can be overwhelming. I think the important thing is to find a balance between patience and perseverance. Sometimes your heart will tell you one thing, and it takes some hard listening before determining what it’s asking for, whether that be a push or patience.