Don’t get me wrong, I love my friends from home and I love coming home to see my family. We had a great holiday season together and I never get tired of seeing my lifelong besties.
At the same time, I did pick a college 5 hours away from home for a reason. I was ready to escape that place. Being home for long periods of time always reminds me why.
Being away at college is a whole different world. It's a world with freedom. It's a world with new people and new rules. A world that is completely separate from your life at home.
So when you do come home, things feel weird. It doesn't feel the same as it did in high school and, if you picked the right school, you should be ready to go back after being home for about 3 days.
Here are just some of the things that happened to me over this winter break that reminded me why I chose to live 400 miles away for 9 months of the year.
1. When you have to ask your mom every time you leave the house and be home by a reasonable hour
2. When a girl you used to have a class with in high school is ringing you up at the cash register and you’re not sure if you should say hi or pretend you don’t recognize her
3. When every night your friends send in the group message “any plans for tonight?” because there is truly nothing to do in this tiny town.
Getting together in someone’s basement feels a little too much like junior year of high school.
4. When you go out to eat with your family and are seated at the table right next to your ex-boyfriend and his new girl
5. When you feel like a guest in your own home until your mom asks you to do things like “wash the dishes” and “vacuum the carpet”?
6. When your old friends that you haven’t talked to in months or even years try to text you saying, “we should totally hang out while you’re home!”
7. When you go Christmas shopping and run into every person you ever knew at the mall
8. When a boy you had a crush on four years ago is sitting two rows in front of you at church and you spend the whole mass trying not to be seen
9. When you FaceTime your friends from school every day just to fill them in on all of the boring things that have happened since you’ve last been together
Because it hasn’t been much.
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Hometowns are filled with so many good memories, as well as awkward ones. Maybe next time I come home I just won't leave my house... until mom asks me to clean my room.