From feeling sad, lonely, and whiny to experiencing physical distress and trouble focusing, homesickness is certainly not an easy feeling to endure. Yet all of us have experienced it when we first moved out of our parents’ home.

I first felt homesick after spending my initial few weeks at university. Attending lectures and seminars and studying in the time between didn’t fill the emotional gap I was longing to close. The “peak” came with a difficult exam in economic mathematics. I recall one night on the phone with my mother—she was trying to help me work through a mathematical equation, and I was whining like a baby.

My mother decided to visit me on her own. At our farewell, she burst into tears that tore my soul apart. From that day on, a silence fell over my homesickness, as I finally understood that it hurts on all sides. Instead of expressing it again through outbursts of negative emotion, I began channeling my longing into a more creative dimension, falling under the spell of the beauties of daily life, and connecting it to my past experiences.

After moving to Germany for my exchange semester, homesickness struck again, but much more aggressively. That winter, I befriended melancholy—a milder form of depression. I still had my favorite TV series and books, and my mind was occupied almost all the time by projects, exams, and other academic work. Nature came to my rescue again, as I was surrounded by breathtaking landscapes I could admire just by glancing out the window.

People say, “Time heals any wound,” and it could not be more true. We tend to adapt to any how. Years after leaving my family behind and seeing them only by video, my homesickness became sick itself. Now, I find it ironic how, instead of dissipating, my homesickness multiplied—and instead of having one, I developed several. Why so? Because in all those years, my life was anything but static. I kept moving forward, building my own network, following my passions, and working hard.

Sometimes, I find myself missing my mother’s homemade dishes; other times, I miss walking down that alley or through that park I used to as a student. Still other times, I miss people and contexts, times of day, or certain tastes.

Homesickness hits hardest when the body—the house of the heart—is weak, jeopardizing your mental state. That’s why, no matter how demoralized you feel, you should never let yourself be disheartened.

Always remember that we are like a magic box filled with stories. The stories we have gathered will never fade, as long as we remember them. But we never stay still; we keep moving, and the love for what you truly care about—family, first and foremost—never loses its intensity and can cross seas and oceans.

Image credits: Zeynep Ongel