I am a 19 year old young woman in her second year of college, and I'm about to spend my first major holiday away from home.

Granted, if you know me, you know that "home" is kind of an intangible element of my life- a feeling, if you will. But when I say "home" in this context I am referring to the place where my immediate family (my mom, my dad, and my sister) lives. Because I am a bit of a data nerd, I decided to plug in the address of the place where I will be spending Thanksgiving this year and see how far away it is from home. The most direct route, according to Google, would take me nine hours and three minutes (not including stops). The total mileage is 602 miles.

That's a lot of miles in between me and the people who raised me and grew up with me. Thinking about it now, it's kind of scary. I could hear the sadness in my mother's voice when I talked to her today about their Thanksgiving plans. Thanksgiving is my second favorite holiday, losing to Christmas by just a few points. Since she is my mother, she knows that, and I think she's nervous for me to be spending my second favorite holiday with other people, 602 miles away. I'm kind of nervous too.

When you're little, all you want to do is be an adult. When you're an adult, all you want to do is be little again. I have found myself in some new kind of medium that I like the feeling of. I am of the age where, yes, I am legally an adult and can make quite a few decisions about my life. I enjoy that freedom immensely. On the other hand of that, it's terrifying. Almost all of my life up until this point has been more or less decided for me. I didn't choose to move all those places. For the most part I didn't even get to choose my high school classes. But all of a sudden when I am given major decisions, there is no one there to tell me what to do. There are people giving me advice, sure. But those spiels usually end up like this: "it is your life. Do what you feel you should do." YIKES!

But to complete that thought about the medium I have found. I am at the age where I have a lot of freedom in the decisions I can make. That's terrifying and thrilling at the same time. While I am allowed to make many major decisions, I am not so far-removed from childhood that if I start to fail, I still have a little bit of safety cushion below me. I know I still have a lot to learn and hopefully if I am humble people will understand when I make mistakes.

So, as a young adult, I am choosing to spend my first major holiday away from home (it was partially a financial problem, but I could have chosen to not invite myself to another family's celebration). I am very excited. The people that I am going to be spending it with, well, I am so blessed to have them in my life. I am going to spend a week with the love of my life and his wonderful parents, very near to a place where I lived at one point. What a better holiday to spend around new loved ones, than one centered around giving thanks?