✈️ | Creating Family
When going away for university, we students are most often made familiar by either older siblings or older friends that the hardest part of leaving home is just that: leaving home. From tearful goodbyes on the driveway to last-second hugs at the airport terminal, it is no understatement how different life suddenly becomes; when the ritual familiarity of coming home to the same people every day transforms into coming home to people entirely new. This absence is felt not only in the quiet of our childhood room, now miles away, but in the everyday moments—meals not shared, advice not readily offered, and comfort no longer a few steps down the hall.
Still, slowly and over time, we begin to establish ourselves within new spaces. A familiar laugh in a lecture hall. A shared umbrella during a classic London downpour. Small moments that gradually stitch a new kind of belonging. We find a new family, made up of new friends and new people we learn to trust. And it’s not just about proximity or shared schedules, or finding one another out of convenience; it’s about the way we grow together. These are the people who witness us at our most raw, and who–when we need it most–help fill in the void.
A piece of advice my grandmother gave me recently was more to my mother than to me, but still resonated: “The moment you begin to walk as a baby is the moment you begin to walk away, and eventually someone new will be the one receiving you.”
In many ways, the people we befriend and surround ourselves with become the home we build for ourselves. A chosen family, bound not by blood, but by becoming.
🐾 | There’s Something Missing…
There is, however, a particular sharpness to leaving home that can’t quite be replicated for some of us. But it’s not a people problem—it’s a pet problem. There, I said it: I MISS MY CAT. We all miss our cats! Some of us miss our dogs! Even horses (I’ll explain later)! We go through all of this effort to find our homes away from home, but the one thing no amount of trips to Whetherspoons or late-night study sessions will fix is the unbearable yearning for our family pets.
As a result, I interviewed the Richmond student body asking for both their input and advice as to what they miss about their pets, and why sharing those feelings is so important:
🐴 – Simmie
Meet Simmie. Simmie is a silver and black horse from Seattle Washington. Beloved pet to Jahrie, a BA Business student, Jahrie recalls his favorite memory of Simmie from when he first met her, “We had an instant connection.”
When asked how living without Simmie has affected him as a student, Jahrie recalled the difficulty surrounding staying connected, “It’s kinda difficult, but I get a lot of Facetime calls, pictures, and videos.”
If another student were in a similar position, Jahrie suggests remembering what the point behind having a pet is: to be there for us, “Our fur-babies are loving and supporting us, even from afar.”
🐈 – Angel
Meet Angel. Angel is a brown tabby cat also from the USA. And, surprise surprise, she’s my cat. My favorite memory with Angel is when she knocked over the Christmas tree in pursuit of a small decorative bird higher up on the branches. You can tell from her largely unsatisfied expression that her attack on the tree very likely was a mission passed down from the Grinch.
Living without my pet as a student has been hard not only because Angel kept me company, but because she always seemed to know when I was upset and how to comfort me in her own little grouchy-cat ways.
If another student were in a similar position, I’d suggest letting yourself feel those sadder feelings. I think we’re at that point in our lives where any sort of negative feeling is a feeling meant to be instantly smothered or immediately overcome. When really, the healthiest thing you can do is to just embrace yourself. That, or go around asking a bunch of other students why they miss their own cats (like me)!
👦 – Dexter
You’d think all pets are animals, and while that’s technically true in this case, this student took me by surprise anyway. Meet Dexter, a 13-year-old human boy from California. His owner—AKA sister—Elizabeth, a BA Psychology student, when asked if she had a pet from home she wanted to showcase, she responded with, “Do siblings count?”. Why not!
Elizabeth reflected on how her life as a student has changed without her “pet,”
“Less loud, less expensive.”
When asked what advice she would give to another student, not in a state of missing their younger brother, but in a state of humor-laced vengeance, “If it becomes too much, you can always put them up for adoption.”
While pets and younger brothers can sometimes become interchangeable, it is often the bothersome family that we end up missing the most. We love you, Dexter, and Elizabeth does too!
♥️ | Getting Through It
Leaving home for university marks the shift away from the comfort of familiarity and slowly towards building a new kind of family: one founded through shared experiences, mutual growth, and mutual longing. Yet, somehow, there’s still a unique kind of homesickness that lingers, most notably for the four-legged (or hooved) companions we had to leave behind.
At Richmond, a university shaped by international breadth, this longing is felt all the more deeply. From Seattle horses to California cats and, in one case, a younger brother, we’re all missing our furry companions.
In sharing these memories and laughs, we’re reminded that missing home isn’t a weakness, but a testament to the bonds we carry with us. No matter how far we go.
