It’s been about two weeks since I packed up my dorm room and moved back home. All my childhood trinkets and collected memories still litter the room I’ve had since I was a kid, and my bed is just as comfortable as I remember. My pets have gotten over their excitement to see me again after my months away, and my friends from high school have all returned as well. Two weeks is enough time to settle in, enough time to find a place in the routine of life back home.
The problem is, I haven’t found my place.
In two weeks, you’d have thought that I would’ve unpacked my life from all the boxes and bags cluttering up my room and fallen back into my role here. It’s about time for me to have flipped the switch and gotten back into the swing of things. But I can’t seem to do it.
It’s not that my family is distant, or that there isn’t room for me here anymore. I know my family loves me, I know this will always be my childhood home, and I know that I have a place here. I just can’t seem to find it.
What it comes down to is that fact that the me that I left here in August is not the same person who came home in May. I didn’t know it, but I was growing and changing and expanding the whole time I was away, and now I’m trying to force myself back into the mold that was created before I left for school. I now know there’s so much more out there for me – more freedom, more independence, more spontaneity, more experiences – and returning home feels like leaving a piece of me out of the picture again. To put it plainly, I just don’t feel like I belong at home.
My life is in transition. I know I’m not an adult (nor do I want to be, frankly), but I’m not the same kid that I was before, and I’m not entirely sure how to handle these three and a half months of what feels like stagnation. I’m not the same person my family was used to. I’m not even the same person I was used to.
So I haven’t unpacked yet. It feels pointless to unpack my life when I don’ really fit here, and besides, I’m going to be moving on again in a few months. But I don’t necessarily think that this is a bad thing. Now that I’m thinking about it, I can use this uncomfortable displacement I’m experiencing to better myself. Maybe during this time I can try to figure how to balance who I am now, between the role I play at home and the role I play at college. Maybe I’ll unpack my stuff and find my place, and maybe I won’t. This may be the push I need to being my next big chapter in life, whatever that may be. I’m dealing with a whole lot of maybes right now, and maybe you are too.
And that’s not bad.
It’s okay to not know where you fit in for now. It’s fine to question where your path is taking you, or what you want to do next, or even if you should unpack your clothes. Keep questioning yourself and keep growing until you find what’s right for you. And when you do, drop me a line, because for now, I’m still figuring it out too.
