THE STRANGE FEELING OF GOING BACK TO YOUR CHILDHOOD BEDROOM

With Thanksgiving break right around the corner, there is something about coming home from college that makes you feel like two versions of yourself at once. You have spent months learning how to live independently and building a life away from home. Then, you walk through your bedroom door and suddenly feel like the person you were in high school all over again. 

Many of us are preparing to come home for a few days of family dinners, hometown friends and much-needed rest. Going home is exciting, but it can also bring up feelings you might not expect. The place that once felt like your entire world suddenly feels unfamiliar, even when everything pretty much froze in time and looks the same. 

The decorations you picked out years ago, old pictures of your friends hanging on the wall, old flowers from someone who was such an important part of your life at the time, homecoming signs and old high school sports awards all serve as reminders of who you used to be. 

At first, it can be comforting. These are the things that made your room feel like yours long before college entered the picture. The place that you used to look forward to coming home to every day is now just full of memories. Looking around can make you realize just how much has changed since you last lived there full time. 

College has introduced you to new people and new versions of yourself. You have learned how to manage your own responsibilities and figure out what matters most to you. Returning to a room that reflects who you were in an earlier chapter of your life can make that new independence especially noticeable. 

One of the strangest parts of going home is realizing how easily old routines can return. You might find yourself falling back into familiar habits or being reminded of the person you were before leaving for college. Family members might still treat you like the teenager who left for school, even through you have changed in a hundred different ways. All of a sudden you are back to explaining where you are going and remembering what it was like to live under your parents’ roof. 

As break approaches, it is easy to focus on everything you need to do while you are home, squeezing it all into a few days. Try to leave a little room for the moments that don’t need to be productive. Spend time in your childhood bedroom without feeling like you need to change everything about it. Look through old pictures and drive through the places that once felt so familiar. Your childhood bedroom might look the same, but the person sitting in it as experienced an entirely new chapter of life. You get to revisit a version of yourself you once knew while recognizing how far you have come. 

• childhood
• college
• home
• memories
• Thanksgiving Break
• wvu