2,000 Miles Away From Home
As I sit here in my cave of a room on the fourteenth floor of the Dwight Lofts, anxiously (and honestly, reluctantly) awaiting the start of my classes after Labour Day, my parents are on their drive back home to my sleepy town in SoCal.
Chicago is big. It’s scary. It’s big and scary. Tiny suburb me isn’t comfortable with big city Chicago. I’ve only been here one other time, which was orientation back in early July.
I got up at about 9:30am, but I didn’t crawl out of bed until about 10. Since going out on the city on my own is still a very scary thought for myself, I resign to staying in my room and sitting on my computer watching YouTube all day. Vlogbrothers, TomSka, JackSepticEye, Markiplier, Game Grumps, Kurzgesagt… the usual stuff I watch. Nothing exciting, really. (I used to watch 5–15 videos daily. I can never do that anymore.) Around 11:30, I have some leftover lasagna that my parents left me with from the other day and a slice of bread. It’s a decent enough lunch, I’m still pretty full actually (it’s about 6:55pm at this point). I’m still watching YouTube.
After looking in the fridge at some of the groceries I bought the previous two days and the two remaining containers of leftover pasta from Mom & Dad, I decide not to have any dinner. Maybe I’ll make a sandwich or heat up some frozen food later, before the Target night thing at 9.
I keep going to bed super emotional and/or crying.
It took us four days to drive all the way here. On the road, I was feeling alright. It just felt like a road trip (because it was). Once I got here, though, an overwhelming tsunami of homesickness and amplified depressive feelings hit me. For the last few nights getting used to sleeping on an iconic Twin XL college dorm bed, I keep going to bed super emotional and/or crying.
I’ve looked it up; homesickness is common in college freshmen. And not to mention the depressive feelings I’ve had for about a month now (it’s probably correlated as well with my grandfather being stuck in the hospital/rehab centre for the last month due to a stroke). It’s true; Chicago is a very new environment to me; I’m scared, I’m not used to the city. I’m surrounded by strangers. People somehow get invited to parties at school but the semester hasn’t even started yet. I barely have a clue on how to navigate around the city.
Convocation on Friday was really nice though; I found some LGBT+ groups, Christian groups, art and game dev groups, and a Chinese student association. I wasn’t really expecting to find much, but I was pleasantly surprised by how many different and diverse interest groups and organizations there were. It’s nice. Eases my heart knowing that there are good people out here that want to help me feel more comfortable here.
Yesterday after a day of grocery shopping in Chinatown, I came back, tried to relax a bit with pals on Discord and ended up watching Markiplier’s video on Homeworld. I wasn’t there for the livestream, but I wanted to watch this video. And, oh, what perfect timing.
I’m not going to explain the video, but the ending of where Mark summarizes the story of the Hiigarans hit me with such a force I could not help but cry. The Hiigarans had something that could take them back home. These people, despite new civilizations, are homesick. I’m homesick.
And yes, sometimes I feel that I just want to go home, curl up in my own warm bed, and spend a little more time with my family and friends, back to an environment I feel (relatively) safe and familiar with.
But like the Hiigarans, all I have here with me in Chicago is all I have; sure, I can buy things online and have my parents ship me things from home. But in the great span of things, I, like the Hiigarans of Homeworld, have to make do with what I have and the time I have here available to me: my dormmates, neighbors, new and current friends, instructors, clubs and organizations, the Student Health Centre, the entire city of Chicago.
This city is strange and foreign. Chicago is like the planet the Hiigarans were banished to. They were in a strange place, unfamiliar to them, but they made it work (for some time). And I have to make this work for me. I am scared, but this is something I need to do. I am too comfortable in Southern California. I needed this change in my life. There is nothing more I could learn there.
I miss my family, my friends, people I grew up with. And I love them. I always will. And as the emotional wreck that I am, even if I feel alone, I’m not. I can call home. I can text people. I don’t have to feel alone. I can get to know people here. I can make friends here. This is not the end of a story; this is a closure of the first chapter of my life and the beginning of the next.
