12 Things You Will Only Understand If You Moved Away From Home

1. Nothing compares to the independence you feel. You feel so proud walking down the street of your new city because it’s yours. It’s not your friends or your parents, it’s all yours. You have the freedom to explore and go where you please. You have the freedom to completely start over and create a new life for you.

2. Sometimes it gets really hard. Sometimes you find yourself feel an overwhelming cloud of sadness land over your head. It makes you miss home and your family so much. It makes you want to run to the airport and buy the next ticket home, but you don’t because eventually you know the feeling will pass and your new life will continue.

3. Missing your family never gets easier. Riding on the subway next to a family or seeing a family walking together to get dinner always leaves a little sting of emptiness inside your chest. It doesn’t get easier the longer you’re away, either. Some days are just harder than others.

4. A phone call with your mom can make everything feel better. Even if you can’t physically be with your family you can always hear their voices over the phone. Sometimes that’s all you need to make the overwhelming sadness you feel vanish and feel better about being on your own.

5. You will miss the familiarities. You will miss that the bartender at your favorite bar knows what you’re going to order as soon as you walk in. You will miss the food and the local shops that you could only find at home. It’s all part of the process of moving on and finding new favorites.

6. You will create new favorite places to escape to. You will miss the old places, but you will find new favorite places. They won’t replace the old, but you will make new room in your heart for them.

7. When you know you get to go home you feel extremely happy. Nothing makes you happier than knowing that you can actually go home and hug your family. The weeks leading up to it fills you with pure joy and makes you so excited you could puke.

8. Missing out on events rarely gets easier. Whether it’s a wedding you can’t make it back for or celebrating your dads birthday some things you just have to miss out on because you’re hours away. You start to get less and less phone calls and seeing more and more on Facebook. It’s just too hard to keep up with everything you’re missing.

9. You have to sort your own shit out. Your parents aren’t there anymore to help you with bills or rent or sorting out your phone plan. The struggles life throws at you are now struggles you have to face on your own and sometimes that’s really hard. Your mom isn’t going to be there when you get home to lean on and complain to. You have to be there for yourself now.

10. It’s easy to lose touch. Before you even realize it the friends you promised you’d keep in touch with have slowly started to fade into the background because you’ve become busy with your new job in your new city and your new friends. You didn’t mean for it to happen, but life happened and sometimes that kind of sucks.

11. There are times you consider dropping everything and going home. Sometimes life makes you want to quit, give everything up and go home. Sometimes it just seems like the best option because dealing with change and obstacles alone can be really hard, but it’s what’s best for you so you stick it out because it will help you grow.

12. Home will always be home. Home will always be there and you can always go visit. You don’t have to throw everything you’ve been working towards away but you can always go visit. You can always call your friends and family, and you definitely should. You might have moved away and started your own life, but your old life will always be there too when you need a reminder of the past.