12:51 am - sick sick sick sick

The other day, my friend and I played a game. We called it The Alphabet of Illnesses. One by one, we went through the alphabet, naming diseases and sicknesses. Alzheimer’s, Bedsores, Chickenpox, you get the idea. Whoever lost would have to sleep on the floor.

When the letter “H” came to me, I panicked. She said, “Huntington’s disease.”

I blurted out, “Homesickness.”

She laughed at me, called it cheating. But the more I thought of it, the more I began thinking homesickness is a type of illness. A type of hurt, definitely.

This past weekend, I helped my brother move into his dorm. Everyone talks about the excitement of new beginnings, the independence of college, the thrill of stepping into adulthood. But what I noticed more than anything was the heaviness in my mom’s face.

She cried before we even reached the car. And in that moment, I realized it wasn’t just my brother who was leaving for college, it was her, too. She was leaving behind years of routine, of dinners together, of someone to talk to in the kitchen late at night.

She told me later that next year it would be even worse, because that’s when I’ll be leaving too. She said it with a half-smile, joking that no one would be left to “bug” her anymore. By bugging, she meant me asking to hold her hand.

It’s strange, because in almost every other context, I hate being touched. I recoil, swat hands away, draw lines that not even anxiety can blur. But with the people I love, I am the opposite. With them, I don't flinch. I even reach first, lean in. I grab their hands, hold them close. I cling. And my mom, she has always been the hand I hold most.

She said she worried no one would be there to hold her hand. I felt something twist.

I’ve felt homesickness before, of course.

Freshman year, at a Harvard Debate Intensive, I couldn’t sleep for two nights straight. The ache was unbearable, like part of me had been cut off.

Or that surreal week at the Air Force Fencing Camp. I had lied about my age just to get into the advanced group, only to find myself half the size of everyone else. Every match, I was pummeled. Physically tired with puncture bruises across my thighs and arms, and lines of dried blood across my arms. But the worst wound wasn’t from fencing. It was the ache of missing home.

But the older I get, the more I realize that my version of homesickness isn’t really about missing the place. It isn’t about the house or the bed or even the comfort of routine. It’s about guilt. Before the Harvard Debate Intensive, my mom had said, "Wow, your first overnight program. You won't need me to care for you much longer". Before the Air Force camp, she had said, "Look at you growing up. You don't need my nagging anymore". It's always been about guilt.

I feel guilty for growing up.

Every year on my birthday, my mom cries. She brushes it off as being sentimental, but I can see the grief in her eyes: another year slipping away, another year closer to goodbye. And I cry too, not because I dread age, but because I dread what it means for her.

She has given me everything. The small things: the lunches packed, the late-night talks, the hand that always reached back when I grabbed it. The big things: the sacrifices invisible to me when I was younger, but undeniable now. How many times did she put herself second so I could be first? How many times did she swallow her exhaustion so I could feel cared for?

And now, after all that, I will leave. I will choose a school in another city, another life that doesn’t revolve around her. I will carve out a future that pulls me further from her world, while she stays behind, quietly adjusting to the empty spaces.

How do you not feel guilty for that?

It feels, in a way, like betrayal. To leave the person who has loved me most in order to find myself. To walk away from the one place I’ve always been wanted without condition.

That’s what homesickness really is for me: not the missing, but the guilt of leaving. Knowing that to grow up is to walk away. That every step forward is also a step apart.

But maybe there’s another way to see it.

As I mentally prepare myself for college by compiling my senior year scrapbook, I'm learning how to say goodbye and learning to see how there is something sweet in each one of them. Maybe homesickness isn’t just an illness. Maybe it’s proof of love. Proof that home isn’t just a place, but a person. Proof that even as we grow, even as we leave, the bond that raised us never really breaks.

And maybe the hand I hold now will still be there, if not in the same kitchen, if not in the same house, then in the quiet corners of every call, every visit, every memory.

I feel lucky to be able to be homesick.

Cheers,

emma