As the novelty of beginning the year at SMU wears off, first-year students have started to feel the pangs of homesickness: the loving parents, the roomy bed, the fresh meals and, most importantly, the water pressure.
When I first started to wallow in what I believed to be a childish need for comfort, I thought that I was the only one who was ready to pack up and return to the motherland. I soon realized this was not the case after I heard so many of my peers expressing their excitement for fall break. I was shocked to observe that homesickness is prevalent across the board.
No matter how much fun we’re having or how excited we are to be here, there are still aspects of the transition that are hard for everyone. Being at SMU may even be a huge improvement in regards to living arrangements for some students, but familiarity has a way of winning out.
If you’ve eaten Fruity Pebbles every morning for the past five years, then having a plethora of options for breakfast foods is certainly exciting. Strangely enough, you will probably gravitate toward the Trix, which is Umph’s closest alternative to Fruity Pebbles. Trix: instead of a made to order omelet or a giant fluffy waffle. That decision seems sillier than a rabbit choosing cereal over a carrot or whatever else the poor guy is expected to eat.
The thing is, we’re all creatures of habit. Even the spontaneous types probably sit in the same seat every day in class. We like to have consistency and stability, which can apparently be satisfied by something as simple as having the same cup of coffee every morning. So for most of us, being homesick really has nothing to do with the comparison of how awesome home is as opposed to SMU. We all know SMU is fantastic.
What we miss is driving on the same roads, eating at the same restaurants and shopping at the same Wal-Mart where we’re bound to see a friend or two. We miss the familiar faces, even though the faces at SMU are notoriously gawk-worthy. So, how do we cope? The easiest step is to consciously remind yourself of what brought you to SMU in the first place.
If you want to get weird about it, you can give yourself a pep talk in the mirror. The ridiculousness of that is sure to cheer you up. You could also just close your eyes and pretend that you’re in the comfort of your own bedroom surrounded by your old poster friends Justin Bieber and the Cedric Diggory version of Robert Pattinson (which would have been way too embarrassing to put on your dorm walls).
My favorite coping mechanism is sending sad-face pictures of myself (selfies) to all the people I miss. Only good things can come from sending selfies. So, there may not be any good substitutes for just going home to ease homesickness. It really is something that we just have to push ourselves through mentally.
But there is relief in knowing that we are all in the same boat and that this will eventually be our comfort zone. As far as the water pressure goes, good luck with finding the bright side to that issue. Unless you enjoy feeling like you are still coated with soap and shampoo when you are done bathing, there is just nothing positive to be said about the showering situation.
Thrall is a sophomore majoring in journalism. She can be reached for comment at [email protected].
