Homesickness - the real deal

“Heart thoughts are profound, hindsight aches and hope is obscure. I'm craving a great adventure -- one that leads me back home.” ― Donna Lynn Hope

Homesickness is a real thing and happens to the best of us. I did not believe in this phenomenon until very recently. The whole of the first semester went by and I did not flip out even once. I went home for more than a month and I was yearning to go back to college as soon as possible. But then the second semester began and things changed. I still was not aware of the fact that my heart and my mind have come to this consensus that home is where they want to be. But one week before the whole weekend when my parents couldn’t decide where to escape to, I called them up crying to tell them they have to come to Delhi NCR in any way. Even though I met them over the long weekend, I couldn’t keep calm for the whole of following week before I went back to IIT for real. For almost the entirety of the week, I would go to bed crying only because I wanted to be back home. 

Much like myself, my parents went into a state of shock because I had always told them how I don’t like coming back to that place and how my home is Ashoka. But I was in distress. I needed my dad to tell me that things usually turn up ok and my mom to put me to sleep. But how could I explain to them what’s wrong? Because nothing really was right anyway. I had come back to college in the second semester as a highly motivated person with high expectations with this semester and some amount of hope from myself in lieu of doing even better than the first semester. But aren’t you taught after every setback that you are not supposed to keep expectations? Because they invariably hurt.

With this semester I got stuck with one course that I absolutely hate and could not change it in time because of my own foolishness again in the hope that things will improve. Then I took up maths much against my wishes because it is a compulsory requirement which one must fulfil to receive their degree. I very excitedly took Spanish as a co-curricular and it frustrates me how I can not even say ‘My name is Surabhi’ without referring to my notes even when half the semester is over. But the good thing? I have two amazing history courses which give me the satisfaction of calling myself a history major. 

But was this it? I felt alienated. I felt lonely despite being around my Ashokan family. People’s insensitivity made it worse. We tend to make emotions competitive. I know person X might be missing home in the traditional sense it is supposed to be and someone else may not even go home for the holidays but that does not mean I am not homesick. I see people longing for their own definition of home every now and then. Somehow my definition seems to be very different from how homesick is normally defined. I don’t really miss the city or its food or people or the lanes that lead to nowhere. I don’t miss my friends (yes I’m a horrible person like that and I’m sorry) or the parks I used to play when I grew up or the school classroom where Is pent hours thinking how to burn the place down. 

I miss the fact that there is someone to listen to the utmost crap that I have to say without calling me an idiot or crack head. I am all of that but it still feels nice when once in a while people just listen. I miss the long walks at night to clear my head out and talk about anything in the world. I miss the pampering and the fact that I could probably consider myself the ‘favorite child’. I miss how I don’t have to make coffee for myself and someone will always be there to do it and it will magically turn out to be good even if the taste parameters do not match mine. Ok, I am missing that coffee now. I miss sleeping on the sofa and riding my scooter. I don't like going home per say. I just need the feel of home around me. 

I was a little late in realizing what this excruciatingly painful word means. But maybe not too late either. It is an emotion understood by different people in varied senses. For me, it is the sense of loss of genuine true love and comfort and of course pampering and the sense that you are hopefully the rightful owner of the title ‘favorite child’. I miss home even if I do not miss the house, the city, the people, the secrets of the town necessarily.