When I packed my bags and drove to Grand Valley on move-in day, I was excited. There I sat, surrounded by bedding and bins and coffee supplies, ready to start the next chapter of my life.

At the time, I wasn’t too concerned about leaving my family. After all, I had lived with them for nineteen years and would see them again over Labor Day weekend, which was only two weeks away. Right then, all I could think about was my future as a Laker; homesickness was hardly on my radar.

My first two weeks on campus, I managed to maintain my enthusiasm. This was not difficult since the first several days were packed with fun orientation activities and then easy introductory classes. Overall, college life was still too fresh and exciting for me to feel nostalgic and miss my family badly.

But then I went home for Labor Day weekend and everything changed. Though I had been away from my parents and siblings for two weeks (the longest I had ever gone without seeing them), I was now struck by the fact that this separation had only been a taste of what was to come. In fact, I wasn’t even sure when I would see my family again, since my next official school break wouldn’t be until Thanksgiving.

Because of this, leaving home the second time was significantly harder. In addition, I also had very little waiting for me back at Grand Valley: My initial excitement about attending college had been replaced by exhaustion; my classes were in full swing, so I was already swamped with homework; and I hadn’t made any close friends yet, so I had very few people that I could look forward to seeing.

This was perhaps the cruelest of ironies: I was surrounded by people, yet felt very alone at the same time. Needless to say, my first week back was anything but easy.

Slowly, though, I began to resettle into college life, and as my circumstances began to improve, so did my outlook. During the next two weeks, I developed a tentative routine as I attended classes and learned to find my way around campus competently. I even made some friends who helped to make Grand Valley feel more like a home. I joined a club, too, which gave me an opportunity to leave my apartment and socialize.

Still, I missed my family, so I decided to go home this past weekend. Part of me worried that this visit would undo the difficult integration process that I had been undergoing. At the same time, though, I realized that this was actually the next step in that process: I had to learn to use these visits to cure my homesickness, not make it worse. In short, I had to prove to myself that I could come back to school and be okay.

Leaving home this past weekend wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t unbearably hard, either. I enjoyed seeing my family and will miss them, but now I have my Laker family, too. And the thought of that makes everything better.

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