I remember hearing a line once: “Homesickness passes, like most sicknesses do.” I wanted it to be true. I wanted it to mean that one day I’d wake up and the ache in my chest would be gone—that I wouldn’t feel this constant tug back toward the Chicago-land area, toward the streets that raised me, toward the life I left behind. But the truth is, homesickness hasn’t passed for me. Not fully. It’s just shifted, softened, changed shape.

When I left Chicago two and a half years ago, I thought I was being brave. But sometimes bravery looks a lot like desperation. I wasn’t really running toward a new life; I was running away from the old one. Away from a relationship that had run its course. Away from versions of myself I couldn’t stand to look at anymore. Away from streets I could navigate in my sleep but that suddenly felt suffocating. I thought leaving would save me, and maybe in some ways it did. But no one tells you that saving yourself comes with a cost, and for me that cost was homesickness.

Those first months were lonely in a way I’d never felt before. It wasn’t just that I didn’t have friends here—it was that I didn’t have history here. No one knew me. No one carried the shorthand of my past, the inside jokes, the shared memories. Every laugh had to be built from scratch. I’d sit in coffee shops pretending to be absorbed in a book, but really I was watching groups of friends laugh, couples leaning close to whisper, families wrangling kids—and all I could think was: I don’t belong to anyone here. Chicago wasn’t perfect—far from it—but it was familiar. Every block had a story. Every dive bar, a memory. I could walk into Jewel or Mariano’s and know exactly which aisle held what I needed. Here, everything felt like a maze, and the maze mirrored my insides.

Homesickness is cruel because it doesn’t always roar. Sometimes it whispers. It’s in the taste of food that doesn’t hit the same because the people who made it meaningful aren’t across the table anymore. It’s in the sudden sting of hearing a Chicago accent in a grocery store aisle, my whole body turning toward it like a magnet. It’s in the holidays that feel hollow without the familiar chaos of family. And sometimes it’s not even about the city at all—it’s about the version of myself that lived there. The girl who still had her scaffolding. The girl who knew where she fit, who belonged by default.

People say homesickness passes, but I think that’s only half-true. It doesn’t vanish like a cold. It lingers like a scar—sometimes tender, sometimes forgotten until you press on it. Some days I feel strong, proud of the life I’ve built here. I’ve learned to walk into rooms alone, to sit in silence without fear, to meet strangers and slowly make them friends. But then there are days when the ache comes back so suddenly it knocks the wind out of me—an accent, a memory, a song on the radio—and suddenly I’m back in Chicago in my head, wondering why I ever thought I had to leave.

And here’s the hardest part: homesickness isn’t always about geography. Sometimes it’s about time. About people. About who you were in a season you can’t return to. It’s grief, really—grief for the girl I used to be, for the comfort of being known without explanation, for the safety net of routine. Even grief for the relationship I left behind—not because it was right, but because it tethered me. Familiarity has a way of disguising itself as safety, even when it’s a cage.

Leaving forced me into resilience. I learned how to eat alone without shame. I learned how to introduce myself without shrinking. I learned how to start from nothing and survive my own emptiness. That doesn’t make the homesickness disappear. But it does mean I carry Chicago inside me now, rather than needing its streets beneath my feet to steady me. Still, the ache remains. Maybe it always will. Maybe belonging isn’t about erasing homesickness but holding it alongside the life you’re building. Maybe it’s learning to live in the in-between: the world you left, the one you’re creating, and the one you haven’t yet found.

So I come back to that quote: “Homesickness passes, like most sicknesses do.” Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it just changes. It eases, it morphs, it teaches. The ache doesn’t mean you’re failing. It means you’ve loved a place deeply enough to miss it—and you’re brave enough to build something new anyway. You can carry your old home inside you while rooting yourself in your new one. Belonging isn’t instant; it’s built slowly, like trust. And if you feel caught between worlds, know this: you’re not lost. You’re just becoming at home, again.