Tufts Blogs

My two homes are very far apart. 

The Great Plains that raised me are roughly 1300 miles away from Tufts. It takes plenty of planes and lengthy layovers to travel between South Dakota and Massachusetts. Because of this, I have always felt a sense of solitude on campus; I know where to go to get food or necessities, and I have made a happy little life. 

I am fortunate to say that I never truly got the bouts of homesickness that other First Years often felt. That inevitable feeling of missing home never lingered long for me, and I have many people to thank for this. Whenever I needed support, I had my friends. These were the people I would get dinner with, study with...and procrastinate assignments with. If you are my friend Susannah, you would hear me go ballistic about how amazing the most recent episode of WandaVision was. If you are my friends Chris or Maya, you taught me how to let loose and dance to Britney Spears’s “Toxic” outside of Dowling Hall at midnight. Or, if you are my friend Rachel, you would always be down for an early-morning walk around campus, as we take in the air and talk about anything and everything. With friends like these, it was easy to feel comfortable. It was easy to feel at peace. It was easy to feel “at home.”

However, my worst bout of homesickness came at a time when I was literally sick. It was a brief stint of a fever, a sore throat, and chills. I was in my bed for the greater majority of the weekend. Let me be frank: getting sick at college sucks. Since you get a novel freedom with going to college, that also means you need to take on total responsibility for yourself, which can be terrifying. So, there I was: sick as a dog with a sinking feeling that I was going through a difficult time all alone. 

I felt this way for some time––until I received a chorus of calls and texts from my friends. Each of them asked if they could help me in any way. Some offered to bring me chicken noodle soup from Carmichael Dining Hall (definitively the cure for all ailments), others offered to watch a movie with me over FaceTime (this was Susannah, she knew Marvel movies would always make me feel better). These incredible people that I get to call my friends are the reason that I never felt homesick for long. There is no doubt in my mind that these are the people upon whom I will rely when life gets wearying, and I am so grateful that our paths crossed on the Hill. 

But for now, Tufts is where they are; Tufts is home. 

PAX ET LUX, JUMBOS