When people who knew me as a child find out that I just graduated from a university 3,500 miles away from the small English town I grew up in, they are understandably flabbergasted. The reason for their surprise lies in the acute homesickness that plagued me when I was young, a condition that made me turn down many opportunities to travel or study abroad because I couldn’t bear to be away from my mom — on one occasion I sobbed incessantly about going with my best friend to a camp thirty miles away from home.

Now, like you, I’ve found the courage to throw myself into new adventures. I spent semesters studying in Abu Dhabi, Paris and Accra; I passed my summers in New York and Italy. Each time I left I said goodbye to what I knew and loved, sometimes with a friendly face to greet me on arrival, sometimes with no one at all waiting on the other side. I found myself choosing to travel somewhere different, even though it meant reliving those familiar pangs of longing for home. The old me would have thought such things impossible; the new me knows better.

Homesickness has never left me. I still cry a little each time I step on the plane away from beloved family and friends. I used to grow homesick in Abu Dhabi; now, I’m homesick for precisely that campus in the desert. I know when I return to NYU Abu Dhabi, this time as a staff member, I’ll still feel a longing for life I know in the U.K. In some ways I’ve placed myself in a position where I’ll always be a little homesick for a life that exists in another country or on another continent.

The fact that we experience homesickness tells us that we have a place, or maybe several places, of comfort. It speaks to us of the people we love who may only be a phone call away. And that place morphs and adapts as new cities become home, new people become family and new things become favourites. Most importantly, I realized I was not alone in my homesickness.

When I was a first-year student, my favourite way of cheering myself up when I felt far away from home was to buy sherbet lemons from Marks & Spencer. I would excitedly share them with my new roommates, one of whom had previously thought that they only existed in the world of Harry Potter. In that moment, as we laughed over my little taste of home and our shared love of literature, I felt a new home forming. It didn’t diminish my love of England, but it helped me build my life at university. Wherever I was I found pockets of home and shared them with others. It helped to tell others of the life I left and listen to them as they shared theirs. So many people have lived through homesickness. I was able to use my experience to help myself and others.

I think the wonderful J.K. Rowling put it best: “Help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it.” If you are struggling with homesickness, talk to a counsellor, a REACH member, a First Year Dialogue instructor or even an upperclassman. Tell them how you feel. Some of my best friendships came out of one of us asking for help at a time when it was a little scary to do so. Homesickness may still live with me no matter where I am, but it’s given me a wealth of love and support.