After finally adjusting to your new room, new classes, and new friends you will eventually have the ability to go back to your hometown either for a break or even just for the weekend. Especially if you went far away from home for college, it is guaranteed to be a shock in both the best and worst ways.
Once the stress of planning and packing is over and you say goodbye to your college friends, the excitement of coming home kicks into overdrive. When you finally arrive back in your hometown the strangest sense of nostalgia hits and the euphoria of seeing familiar places and faces becomes extremely overwhelming. Seeing your family and your home will put all of your homesickness out of the way, and your college stress simply melts away. Eating a fresh, home cooked meal will undoubtedly change your mindset towards food when compared to the cafeteria. Being able to hang out with your friends at the places you did in high school is an incredible feeling, one that you wish would never end. You begin to realize just exactly how amazing your hometown is and why you love it so much.
Although there are so many great things about coming back home, you will have a lot of changes and realizations. Going from having nobody to tell you what to do and being out all night to going back to a curfew is difficult, but at least it reminds you of your responsibilities and that someone cares. In some cases, it will feel almost as if everyone has forgotten about you and you witness how your town, friends, and family go on with their lives without you. This can be extremely saddening but you must be confident in knowing that you could never be forgotten and that things have to change. Also, it will not be exactly how you imagined it would be, and that is OK. Things do not seem the same as you imagined them and some of your friends change from college, but so have you, and it is just a matter of everyone growing. Probably the most overwhelming sensation that you will experience is the feeling of not being exactly at home like you thought, yet college doesn't make you feel it either. This may be very scary and saddening, and the fears of growing up become incredibly prevalent.
Coming home from college for the first time is a very astounding experience, for good and bad reasons, but regardless it will make you feel much more grounded from it all. Although going back to school will be tough, visiting everyone will encourage you to work harder and make it so much more exciting to come back home again!
