Going away for college brings a variety of un-explainable emotions. The best and worst thing as you pack your room for an adventure of a lifetime is leaving your family. This is the day you have been looking forward to since you could imagine living in a world where your parents couldn't control your every move. You are finally about to have everything you thought you wanted, but let me tell you how quickly you will see this isn't exactly what you wanted...

To my lovely family that I appreciate a lot more now,

It didn't sink in that I actually had a new "home away from home" until you all dropped me off at college. It became so real as we said our goodbyes and I watched you leave. It took a while for me to process that I wasn't coming home with you and I spent part of that night crying. I cried because the day I had dreamed about for a very long time was actually here and I wasn't as ready as I thought I was.

I was never a very dependent person because you raised me to be a strong confident woman who could tackle the world on her own, but it was hard feeling like I didn't have you with me. I guess that's why I decided to be the kid who texted their parents daily and frequently called. In all honestly sometimes I believed we talked more being a hundred miles apart than we ever did living in the same house. But it was not physically having you there to hug or go shopping with, that hurt more than I had anticipated.

Home was now one room that I had to share with someone else. It was this that made me miss having to share so many things with my sister that in the moment I constantly complained about. I now wished I could be fighting over not being able to find my makeup because you stole it, but instead I knew exactly where it all was.

It was an adjustment that I never learned to love the way I thought I would. I looked forward to coming home and when I did, I felt like all of our relationships were much stronger than they had ever been. I appreciated you all in a way I never really had before because I now lived a life where you weren't always right there.

I guess I thought it was nice being able to come home for a visit, but know that I had another "home" to go to whenever I wanted if we were fighting or I just thought you were are all being annoying. As appealing as this sounds I quickly realized that a younger version of myself yearned for this while present me realized how dumb it was to actually have. Being away at college has even made me miss all of our irrelevant fights that I almost always blew out of proportion.

I'm not a freshman anymore and this whole home away from home has become normal. Every year its the same routine of spending four months home for the summer and finally getting used to balancing the rules you put in place just to go back to school.

I know this constant transition is just as hard for you all as it is for me. It is evident that we all miss one another when each of us takes the time to send a text or make a call and for that I am extremely grateful for having went a little far for college.

I appreciate you for still being in my corner miles away and for always picking up my calls no matter the hour. Your constant support has made every step of the way much easier. I don't say this enough, but I appreciate each of you more than anything and I see that clearer now.

Love, your college student.