Model Face-off

Dear Maya,

I got your text, and first of all — you're allowed to call, you know. You don't have to squeeze your entire emotional state into three sentences and a crying emoji. But since you did, consider this my very long, very sappy reply.

I won't pretend I'm surprised the campus feels huge. It IS huge. That's the whole trick of the first month — it feels like everyone else got handed a map and a group of best friends at orientation, and somehow you were in the bathroom when they passed yours out. I promise you, nobody got a map. Everyone is faking it. Some are just better actors.

You know I've been exactly where you are. When I moved away, I spent my first month convinced I'd made a catastrophic mistake. I got lost on my own campus — twice in one day, which I'd like the record to show. I ate dinner alone in my room more times than I'll admit, and I called Mom so often she started answering the phone with "Hi, homesick." I missed our Sunday dinners so much it physically hurt. The noise, the chaos, Grandma telling everyone they're too skinny while Uncle Dan steals potatoes off their plates. Dorm food really makes you appreciate being yelled at to eat more.

Here's what changed everything for me, and I promise I'm not just telling you this to be inspirational: I joined the rock-climbing club. Yes, me — the person who used to get winded walking up to the attic. I only went because a girl on my floor dragged me, and I fully expected to hate it. Instead, I found my people. There's something about hanging off a wall together, terrified and laughing, that fast-forwards a friendship. Within a month I had a group chat, inside jokes, and somewhere to be on Tuesday nights. Within a semester, that campus stopped feeling like a foreign country and started feeling like mine. And the rest, as they say, turned out just fine. Better than fine.

So here's my one small, practical tip — only one, I know how you get when people lecture you: pick one spot and become a regular there. A corner of the library, a coffee cart, a table in the dining hall. Go at roughly the same time every day. It sounds almost too simple, but familiarity sneaks up on you. Faces start recognizing your face. A place starts feeling like yours. That's how a strange campus slowly turns into a home — one repeated, ordinary Tuesday at a time.

And Maya, the homesickness? It fades. I know it doesn't feel like it will when you're lying in a bed that isn't yours, in a room that smells like someone else's laundry detergent. But it does. It loosens its grip a little every week, quietly, until one day you realize you went a whole afternoon — then a whole day — without that ache in your chest. Missing home doesn't mean you don't belong where you are. It just means you come from somewhere worth missing. Lucky you, honestly. Some people's Sundays are very boring.

Go find your version of the climbing wall. Say yes to the invitation even when you'd rather hide. And eat something green occasionally — Grandma will sense it if you don't, all the way from here.

Sunday dinner will be right where you left it. I'll save you the good seat. And I'm coming to visit before Thanksgiving, so you'd better have embarrassing stories and at least one new friend for me to interrogate.

I love you, kid. You've got this. And when you doubt it, reread this letter and hear my voice saying it.

All my love (and a care package incoming),
Your favorite cousin

Dear Maya,

I got your text, and I've been thinking about you ever since. First things first: what you're feeling right now? Completely, one hundred percent normal. I know that doesn't make it feel any better, but I promise it's true, and I have receipts.

Let me tell you something I don't think I ever admitted to the family. When I moved away for my first year — same distance as you, almost to the mile — I spent my entire first month feeling like I'd made a terrible mistake. The campus felt enormous. Everyone else seemed to already have friends, like they'd all attended some secret orientation I'd missed. I ate dinner alone in the dining hall with a book propped up so I'd look busy instead of lonely. On Sundays, especially, I'd sit in my dorm room and think about everyone crowded around Grandma's table, arguing over the last of the garlic bread, and I'd feel this ache right in the middle of my chest. So when you say you miss Sunday dinners, believe me, I know exactly which ache you mean.

Here's the part I need you to hold onto: it changed. Not overnight, and not because the campus got smaller, but because I finally did the thing I'd been too nervous to do. About six weeks in, I dragged myself to a rock-climbing club meeting, mostly because they promised free pizza. I was terrible at climbing. Genuinely embarrassing. I fell off a beginner wall in front of thirty people. But you know what happens when you fall off a wall in front of thirty people? They cheer for you anyway, and then someone shows you where to put your feet, and suddenly you have people. Those climbing club weirdos became my whole college family. Some of them are still my closest friends. And it all started with one awkward evening I almost talked myself out of.

So here's my one practical tip, and I want you to actually do it, not just nod at your phone: pick one thing this week — a club, an intramural team, a study group, the ultimate frisbee kids on the quad, anything — and show up once. That's it. You don't have to love it. You don't have to go back. But showing up once is how every good thing at college starts, and big universities are secretly just hundreds of small communities waiting for you to walk in the door. You only need to find one.

And Maya, the homesickness fades. I know it feels permanent right now, like this is just what your life is going to feel like from now on, but it isn't. One day, probably sooner than you think, you'll be walking across campus and realize it feels like *your* campus. You'll have a favorite coffee spot and a shortcut through the library and people who wave at you. Home doesn't disappear when that happens — it just gets bigger. You'll end up with two of them.

In the meantime: call me on Sundays if you want. We can eat dinner together over the phone and I'll describe Grandma's cooking in unnecessary detail until you're both homesick *and* hungry, which I realize is not an improvement, but it's the kind of service I offer.

I'm so proud of you, kid. It takes real guts to move 300 miles from everything you know. The fact that it feels hard doesn't mean you're doing it wrong — it means you're doing something big. You come from a long line of stubborn people who figure things out, and you're maybe the most stubborn of us all, which I mean as the highest compliment.

Go find your climbing club. And text me when you fall off your first wall, literal or otherwise, so I can cheer for you from here.

All my love (and dibs on visiting for your first football game),

Your cousin

P.S. Grandma asked me to tell you she's freezing a container of Sunday leftovers for when you come home for break. It will be freezer-burned beyond recognition by then. Eat it anyway. You know the rules.