Dear soon-to-be uni student,

We made it, Class of 2025.

We (barely) survived high school.

We now find ourselves standing albeit a bit waveringly, on the brink of beginning university.

Some of us prepare to tug at our wings to take a one-hour flight away from home, while others have chosen universities across borders, galloping over oceans.

Image Credit: Louis Magnotti from Unsplash

Whatever the distance between home and university, trotting out of the crooning comfort of our respective home cities to be on our own for the first time is daunting, to say the least.

As I try to prepare myself for upcoming preparations that my parents and I will make as my flight to university comes closer, I can’t help but reminisce on the day we dropped my older brother at the airport as he left to attend university an eight-hour flight away from home. I was fourteen. My parents, he, and I were all inside our ages-old family car, driving to the airport in the shrouding darkness of midnight, listening to classical music we’ve been listening to since my brother and I were born.

I remember the gruelling silence. It was beginning to dawn on us that this was it. We wouldn’t have car drives with all four of us for a long time. We would miss being lectured by my brother on every possible topic in this world, how he would sit on the swing on our balcony every morning, reading the newspaper for hours.

The little things.

As we saw my then 17-year-old brother walk inside the airport and disappear amidst the enveloping throng of passengers, I remember a solemn streak of tears rolling down my cheek. I also remember wishing to have been more prepared for what was about to come: the sudden pang of cruel loneliness that hit the family when one of the members left.

Image Credit: Mantas Hesthaven from Unsplash

But alas, all of us were so intertwined with the preparations for his leaving that we were oblivious to the magnitude of the silence that we would be forced to adapt to.

It all began two to three months before his departure.

The shopping for clothes, food packets, and bags.

The packing of giant suitcases.

The incessant meetings with relatives and friends who wanted to invite our family for meals so that they could properly see my brother off.

And now that I am giddily inching nearer to the time that we start making preparations for my leaving, I find myself full of dread.

There is excitement, too; don’t get me wrong. I can’t wait to make the most of my university days, which are by public opinion supposed to be the ‘best years of my life’.

However, having been directly involved in the subtle, abrupt upheaval that families feel when one of the children goes away, I am worried about the broken pieces that my parents would be required to bend, pick up, and fix once I leave.

I know how, for at least the first few months every breakfast in our home would sting my parents as they grapple with ‘empty nest syndrome’. I can imagine my mother missing me sleeping next to her when she takes her daily afternoon naps, and I can see myself sitting in a lecture or the library at uni at the same time, the reassurance of those naps fleeting through my mind.

I know that my father and I will miss our random on-the-spot poetry jamming sessions when we would turn anything into a poem by adding sentences ending in rhymes, many times teasing Mom before the three of us burst into healing laughter.

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I find myself in a rather juxtaposed phase of my life when, even though I am still at home, every sweet little moment turns bitter as I think of how it would be deeply missed by both my parents and me once I leave.

My heart aches each time my mom looks at me in the middle of our binge-watching sesh, suddenly saying, in a muffled voice trying to conceal her emotions, “Who am I going to do this with when you go?”

This didn’t happen when my brother was about to leave.

My parents didn’t talk about what they would do once he left, maybe because they hadn’t experienced it yet and didn’t truly know what it would feel like to have a child in a different country until it actually happened.

Having already been through the experience of my brother leaving home though, this time my parents, just like me, seem better at anticipating the emptiness that will engulf the house after my leaving.

The three of us very well know the changes that would impose themselves upon our house this August, but we try to avoid talking about it as much as possible.

If you’ve also had an older sibling leave home for university, then I’m sure you can relate. You're likely to find it easier to predict how the house dynamics will change when you leave too. But if you’re the first-born and are finding it difficult to imagine the pain of your leaving not only for you but for your parents as well, this letter is your cue to start making the most of your last few months at home.

You might be tempted to say, ‘It’s not like we’re leaving forever! We’re going to come home at any chance we get.’ While that’s completely doable, some things, whether we like it or not, permanently change after we leave home for the first time.

Image Credit: Anastasiia Chepinska from Unsplash

Suddenly, our home is not our sole residence but a place we retreat to during breaks and weekends.

Our room is no longer only ours; photo frames that can’t fit in the living room become plastered on our walls, and washed laundry is dumped on our bed whenever the couch needs to be made vacant to accommodate guests.

So, as you begin to make preparations for your journey to university, don’t forget to look around.

Look at your room: your little cave that’s seen you grow into the incredible young adult that you are today.

Look at the flowers in your garden, the books on your shelves.

This time next year you’re going to be waking up in a completely different environment.

Be grateful for how far you’ve come, and buckle up for what is about to be your epic adventure of a lifetime without forgetting to appreciate your current surroundings.

I'm sorry if I pricked the big hunky-dory balloon that you might've inflated with regards to your upcoming university experience, by writing about the other side of leaving home, the darker one that people hardly talk about.

But you'll thank me later.

The last thing you want is to reach uni and regret not having truly lived at home.