CHISTYAKOV: Leaving home

During my sophomore year of high school, I spent a semester studying abroad in Israel.

It was a struggle trying to integrate myself into Israeli society while also feeling extremely homesick and confused about the situation I was in. The experience was amazing, and if I could I would relive every second of it.

When I came home at the beginning of June, I told myself that living and studying abroad had prepared me for the encounters I would run into at college. I repeatedly told myself that if I could live in Israel for four months, then surely I could spend a year away at college.

What I didn’t know back then was that I would be living on the opposite side of the country, far from Beverly Drive and Santa Monica Boulevard.

While Israel might seem far, Boston feels even farther. I had the heat and pretentious attitudes in Israel that reminded me so much of home. The humidity and cold of Boston are so new and harsh to me.

In Los Angeles, I was used to driving any time I needed to get out of the house and there were always parking spaces available for me. In Boston, every time I sit in a car I feel like I am entering a war zone (especially while searching for parking).

But the one thing my trip to Israel and my current stay in Boston have in common is the extreme distance. Leaving home is difficult, whether you come from Los Angeles, New York, Mexico City or Paris. When you’re talking on the phone with your parents with a shaky voice, trying to tell them how much you miss them without shedding a tear, it’s hard to imagine that all of your happy and social floor mates are feeling the same way. Even though it’s hard for me to fathom, I take comfort in the fact that most, if not all freshmen have felt the same as me. I find it impossible for any teenager to leave his or her home without feeling some sort of separation anxiety. But if all of us have felt homesick at one point or another, why does it feel embarrassing to be visibly sad in my dorm? Why do I feel that I need to control my emotions when I talk to my dad or my sister on the phone? Why do I need to hide my tears from my roommate?

It’s not a taboo to show your emotions in public, unless they’re negative emotions. If my professor says something rude during a lecture, I could call him out on his comment and get angry in front of the entire class, but I refrain because I wouldn’t want the other students to feel awkward or uncomfortable being around me. If I suddenly felt homesick in my Spanish class, I could easily start bawling and call my dad on my cell phone, but I would be considered an emotional wreck if I acted on those impulses.

Acting on negative feelings in public is strongly looked down upon and for a good reason — if we all acted on our angry feelings then every philosophy classroom turn into a war zone, traffic jams would turn violent and unhappy floor mates would be in a constant wrestling match with each other.

Yet this repression of emotions makes all of us feel uncomfortable admitting that we are, in fact, sad at times and that we are not as strong as we show ourselves to be.

Feeling homesick is as normal as feeling happy over a good grade or angry over an insulting comment. The only difference is the outcome of showing these emotions in public.

The reality for everyone is that it’s not easy being away from home, so why does this have to be so embarrassing for us to admit?

Rachel Chistyakov is a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences and a Fall 2012 columnist for The Daily Free Press. She can be reached atrachelch@bu.edu.