There's something comforting about going home. The familiarity, the friends, family, the food you know, the bed you're used to, the sounds and smells that you know. I'm lucky enough to have two homes: my hometown and also my school.
Now, some might be reading this thinking that I'm crazy, but hear me out. I'm just as excited to go back to my hometown as I am to come back to campus. I get the same feelings of comfort and happiness both places. I have incredible friends, friends that have become a family to me, my bed, sights and sounds that I know. I've become used to the way it sounds when people walk down the hall of my residence hall as I did at home with the sounds of my brothers running around outside my bedroom door.
Walking up the stairs in my residence hall has become the same as walking up the stairs in my house at home. One flight to my room. The scenery might be different, the people might be different, but the feeling is the same. Strangely enough, I've become so used to having a roommate that when I'm at home, I've caught myself wondering when she's going to show up in my bedroom!
Leaving my hometown, I become upset knowing that I'm leaving my mom and dad, little brothers and friends, but am overjoyed at seeing all of my college friends again. When I leave school, I'm heartbroken about leaving the family I've made here, especially since we all live so far away from each other, but am ecstatic about going home and seeing my friends from high school and my family there.
There's something exciting about finishing the three hour drive and coming over the hill and seeing the Hospital near my house, knowing that I'm mere minutes away. Turning into my neighborhood and driving down my street to the driveway is an amazing feeling. I get the same feeling when I come here, though, turning off of 38th Street and onto Clarendon Road, seeing the Holcomb Observatory and knowing I've made it and within minutes I'll see my friends.
I'm blessed and thankful to have both of these places, to be comfortable and to love each of them equally. I wouldn't change choosing to go to school here for anything, and I know that wherever I go, I'll always have two places to call home. Going away for college has truly solidified the idea that home is where your heart is -- and that it is possible for your heart to be in multiple places. It's also made the concept home doesn't always mean four walls and a roof much more prevalent. Home is wherever I'm surrounded by the people I love and the people that love me. Whether south by the river or north by the canal, home is with me wherever I go.
