I was 15 years old when I started to realize how seeing my friends do something without me was affecting my mind. I may have missed a one-hour hangout session at an ice cream shop, a 20-minute FaceTime call or even a 30-second meeting. The length of time did not matter. The activity did not matter. What mattered was that I wasn’t there when Livia, Ana, Paulo and Maria were. 

Throughout high school, I would do whatever it took to not miss anything my friends had scheduled to do together, even if that meant abandoning my grandpa’s 79th birthday or postponing a “This Is Us” watch party that my sisters and I had planned for two months. 

Ironically, my obsessive fear of missing out ended only when I was truly missing out and powerless to do anything about it. 

In January of this year, I moved from Brazil, where I had grown up, to attend Goshen College –— a distance of 5,010 miles and a time-zone that put me two hours behind.

The desire to go abroa d for education and athletics was an easy decision for me. As an international student, I always knew that coming to the U.S. meant leaving everything behind and emerging into a completely different location where my social life would start from its beginning. Yet, pursuing my college degree here was all I ever wanted, so that didn’t even matter.

It only starts to matter when you are here. In January of 2024, I moved to Goshen, a city in a new continent. Now, even if I completely throw my schedule into chaos, I will not be able to be at my friends’ houses for dinner back home. Instead I was watching them reunite every week through Instagram stories seeing them cherish moments without me. 

Living 5,010 miles from home is challenging. Accepting that it is out of my hands now, that it is humanly impossible for me to be with my friends at home, is even harder. The agony would take over in my body and I could not do anything about it. 

It seemed impossible to me, in my first months at GC, that my sadness and fear of missing those moments so far away from me was going to disappear. As an international student, it is common sense how sometimes, we have to figure out things by ourselves, and with that, comes maturity.

Maturing helped me realize that I don’t have to be everywhere to feel valued. It’s freeing to know I can take a step back and focus on my own needs and interests or shift my attention to other possibilities life can provide me. I started to value life abroad more and to live in the moment, avoiding unreachable worries. I am currently living a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

As I sit down to write this article, my phone keeps buzzing with nonstop messages from the WhatsApp group chat I share with my friends back in Brazil. They’re busy planning their weekend together. Maria excitedly asks, “Gente, o que vamos fazer hoje?” a Portuguese phrase meaning “Guys, what are we doing today?” and Ana replies, “A gente podia ir um restaurante gostoso e depois dormir lá em casa,” meaning “We could go to a nice restaurant and then have a sleepover at my place.”

Nine months after living in the States,  I can finally understand my feelings and deal with them. The messages on my phone don’t bother me anymore.

Instead of feeling left out while scrolling through my friends’ social media posts, I started to seek love from those around me — my new Goshen friends were also ready to receive my love and be here for me.

Now, I can finally appreciate the feeling of “missing.” You only miss something when you love it enough so that lack of it affects you. I want to keep challenging myself to create other moments and memories that I might miss someday.

If you also come from another place in the world, I advise you to prioritize your new social life and stop letting your old one consume you. Instead, enable yourself to build your new home amongst new people, embrace the opportunity to connect with those who share different backgrounds and learn from the diversity around you.

Building a new home is about more than just finding a place to live; it’s about creating a supportive community and forming meaningful relationships. As a consequence, I deeply hope a sense of belonging draws nearer to you and FOMO fades away.