When you have had a long day, you’re exhausted, worn-out, and ready to be done, and you say to yourself: “I just want to go home.” Where exactly do you envision yourself? Where is “home?”
I messed up over winter break. I referred to my apartment in Ann Arbor as “home” in front of my family. Sparking sad looks and dismissive jokes. I found myself constantly starting to call Ann Arbor home and having to stop myself before I do. But, when in Ann Arbor, that small town that I graduated in is what I refer to as “home.” I could say that I’m going home after my class, and that could mean either/or. Sometimes to convey my meaning, I’ll say “I’m going home home,” and that always seems to work. People will ask where I’m from, I will only think of my hometown, not Kerrytown.
Every time a break in the semester approaches, there are these questions about what home really means. Our lives are of complete precariousness, filled with dilemmas and no clear answers. We left our homes to come to college, we got to experience things we never had before. But there is also this feeling of strangeness, being in a new place with new people and not quite sure where to fit. Time passes and most of us find our place here on this big campus. We settle in, get into the groove of classes, work, and friends. Then, there is a break. We get to go back to our families, if we’re able to, only to find a similar feeling of strangeness once we return. Only, now we are out of place in the place we grew up in. Our family adapted to our absence, created a routine without us. Almost as though we are guests in a stranger’s home. For most visits, they don’t last long enough to erase that feeling. Those breaks are just long enough to ensure that on our arrival back to Ann Arbor, the same abnormality awaits.
These feelings are not easy, especially amid other existential questions that arise during this point in our lives about our future. For me, I don’t feel as though I am truly moved out and independent from my family. But I do not know why. I live in an apartment filled with the majority of my stuff, I have a job, I pay my bills—with the help of financial aid—and I make my own decisions. But I am still tied to my home. I feel like I am still under the roof of my father, as though this apartment is not my own. Which adds to that list of existential questions: when will I feel like I’m actually an adult? When will I make my own home? When will I stop feeling out of place?