The Atlantic

Adults Can Get Homesick, Too

When young people start their own lives, they often miss where they came from.
Source: Hulton-Deutsch Collection / Corbis / Getty

Travis Wannemuehler hasn’t lived in his home—well, his parents’ home—in seven years. At 24, he’s checked all the boxes of an independent, successful young adulthood: He has a social life, an apartment, and a job that pays the bills.

And, like other adults his age, he has pangs of wanting to go home before realizing he’s in his home. He’s homesick.

A swirl of emotions such as nostalgia, , and longing, homesickness isn’t typically considered an adult thing. It usually evokes experiences like watching your parents drive away after dropping you off at camp or restless first nights in, says homesickness is a common feeling among the 20-somethings she’s worked with as a clinical psychologist for over two decades.

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