I remember the anticipation of going home for the first-time freshman year. The first month was hard and I wasn’t adjusting as easily as I figured I was; my countdown to going home at the end of that month is what kept me going on the rough days. I couldn’t wait to be back in my bed, see my family, my cats, and my boyfriend. I was elated once I walked through the door of my house and could hardly believe I left in the first place. When my parents drove me back that Sunday I was more upset than I had been when I moved in to my dorm. I knew college was my new place to be, but it never felt like home and home was all I wanted.
My childhood home.
But, somewhere along the lines, that changed completely. I’m in my childhood home right now as I write this, sitting at my kitchen table, and it doesn’t feel like it did that time my freshman year. Now I am three-quarters of my way through my junior year and am starting to think about life after college more and more every day. Somewhere in the past two and a half years my life moved on from my small town in Pennsylvania. Whenever I visit it feels like my heart belongs somewhere else and I can’t pin point when that changed.
My brother and I on the porch as kids.
Now, if I were asked where home is, I don’t know what I’d answer. I feel at home in the apartment I share with some of my best friends, and it’s now where I live most of the year. I was at the point where I felt at home in my boyfriend’s college apartment, but now he graduated and moved across the country, but I still hold on to that home. And, yes, I still feel at home in the house where I grew up, in the room I’ve slept in since I was four years old. I sit at the kitchen table we’ve always had and bake in the kitchen I’ve always used. This is where I grew up and where I became the person I am today – so why does it feel different?
Baking in my kitchen at 5 years old.
I know I’m not alone in this. College is a time where all of us are in between different points in our lives. On one hand, I still feel like a kid; I still very much depend on my parents and almost feel like I revert into my 17-year-old self when I’m with my family. But, I’m now entering adulthood. I’m trying to plan what career path I want, my boyfriend and I frequently discuss what our lives will look like together after I graduate, and when I’m at school I worry about myself, by myself. One foot is firmly set in my Philadelphia apartment and ready to be a grown up, while the other is lingering in the countryside I call home.
While a permanent home is up in the air, what I do know is that maybe home doesn’t need to be a physical place – maybe home is just knowing I can sit on the couch eating ice cream with my mom if I want, I can go on a hike on my favorite trail with my boyfriend if I want, or I could drink tea in any café with my best friends, no matter where it is in the world. Home could be all these things; I’m excited to see what it can mean from here.