The sixty-two mile distance between my dorm and the town I grew up in seems like nothing compared to those who can only come home on special occasions. The sixty-two-mile distance seems like nothing when it comes to maintaining friendships with those back at home. The 62 mile distance doesn’t seem like it could do much to a person, especially within a short period of time.
However, as I sit in the freezing cold in the dead of night, staring at the red glow that radiates from the top of Houston Cole Library, I come to a realization. The sixty-two-mile distance that feels like it holds forever between the people I love and myself has changed me in such a small time frame. When I go home, my relationship with my family and friends aren’t the same. I don’t feel right sleeping in the bed that held my body for the last six years. I don’t feel right peeking my eyes open in the middle of the night to check on my roommate and new-found best friend and her not being across from me. It doesn’t feel right trying to relive the summers which are now just fond memories.
Just because it doesn’t feel right doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong. College is a time for you to figure out who you are, or at least who you think you should be. For me, it started to happen immediately. It was almost as if I could physically feel myself changing. I can feel myself transforming into a different person, and I hope it never stands between the people I love and me. I hope that they can learn to love this change as much as I do, even though it hasn’t been easy.
It’s hard to accept that you’re not the same person you were when you left. You want things to be like they used to so badly, but as I previously stated, those things are just reminiscences. It’s hard not to feel a wave of nostalgia whenever you’re sitting in your dorm feeling lonely. It hits whenever you realize that your best friend that held your hand in high school isn’t able to come over. It hits when you can’t go vent to your mom about that boy. The wave that makes me want to jump in my car and drive that sixty-two-mile distance, just to hug and laugh with the people I have known for so long. Nostalgia can be a dirty liar, though. It has a way of making the past seem better than it ever really was. Even though I carry some of the best memories from there, things are the way they are supposed to be.
There really is something about coming to a place that remains unchanged, only to find that you have been altered. Changing means growing, and as long as that’s what I’m doing, I don’t think I mind. All I really want is to smile more, laugh more, listen more, and just generally be a better version of me. If being 62 miles away from home has showed such improvement in such little time, I think I’ll stick around here.