Growing up I did not want anything more than leaving home and moving to, you guessed it, NEW YORK CITY. I guess what made me * think * that I wanted this was the fact that I was a rebellious teen. Like I mentioned on my college journey blog post, I wanted to leave the DR and never look back (thinking of that today only makes me want to laugh). Is not that I had a hard life because I did not, far from it, I had an amazing life back at home, but I always wanted to do what I wanted to do and not follow rules (and I still do).
However, when I left I learned that there is no place like home. Hanging out with my best friends every day, spending afternoons talking with my family and, of course, eating GOOD FOOD. But as you know, it did not take me long to find a friend that I now consider family and made me feel at home when I was in Omaha. But, even if I had a really close friend, I still felt homesick from time to time, yet, I learned how to stop being homesick whenever I missed home. HERE IS HOW I DID IT.
- Talk to your family and friends every. single. day. Ever since I was a little girl I have had a good talking relationship (is that a thing?) with my family and friends. It does not matter if we saw each other a min ago, we would still text each other right after being together for a whole day. So, when I moved, our relationships did not deteriorate because we were always a WhatsApp message away.
- Travel as much as you can. I have been lucky enough that I get/got to travel for
breaks to see my family, and sometimes my family visited me whenever they got the chance. Whenever my mother told me “sabes qué, te extraño demasiado, puedes venir” or “por qué no nos juntamos en Chicago?” I was ecstatic. And, whenever I got to see my brothers I was even happier. (to be quite honest, if I get to see them every day I get the same feeling as if I haven’t seen them in forever and get really happy) - Stay busy. Lucky for me, my professors gave me a lot of homework and projects that kept me from thinking of how much I would have rather be gossiping with my best friends. ha ha ha ha.
- Talk with someone about it. Truth is, you are not the only person that has felt homesick. I relied a lot on my advisor because he went through what I was going through at the time, and he listened to me and understood everything that I was feeling.
- Get your brother to move to Nebraska and go to the same university as you. FACTS.
Today, I live with my grandmother in NJ so I get to be around family all the time. However, I still get homesick from time to time because I am not around my father and brothers. So, what I do when I feel homesick (while being at home away from home) is wait for my father to tell me “Sabes qué, por qué no vienes por unos días?” and get ecstatic because I get to see my father and youngest brother, and some of my best friends.
Being homesick has taught me that home is not the place that you live with your family (or alone), but home is where your heart is, so home for me is wherever my family and friends are.
I hope you enjoyed this blog as much as I enjoyed writing it, and I hope that if you are feeling homesick some of these tips help you.
Talk to you next week!
xoxo
Now, I am going to patiently wait until my father tells me “Sabes qué, por qué no vienes por unos días?”
Virginia Rodriguez 
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