Back at the beginning of December was when I started my Winter Break. It was the first time that I would stay at home for longer than a couple of days, and I was truly excited. There were so many things I was ready to do, so many people I was ready to see (especially my family), so many places I had missed eating at, my bed, and just my small town in general.

For most people who are in college or have moved before, you can probably relate to the feeling that you get when you finally have everything situated like it belongs and are able to sit down on your couch and feel at ease. It is like you feel accomplished when you have everything finally put away where it belongs instead of living out of a suitcase and are where you can take a deep relaxing breathe knowing that you are back home where you are used to the way everything works, and for once you can say, "Ahh, it feels so good to be back home."

You are finally able to sleep in your own bed again, you do not have to wake up for classes, you can do whatever and are just kinda on your own schedule and it is so nice. A week has rolled around and you have seen most of your friends, you have ate at most of your favorite places, and you have been able to do most of what used to be the norm for when you actually lived at home.

Then, you realize that you actually have a little over three weeks still left at "home." You start to miss your college town, you start to miss your college friends, you start to miss your random but oh so fun college adventures that you would go on.

You miss the cook out runs at midnight just because you are hungry and why not? You miss having your friends live right down the hall and coming over and staying until whenever. You miss all the things that your college town has to offer you but your hometown does not, and suddenly... you do not feel so at "home."

For me, it was such a weird feeling. I have lived in my hometown all of my life. You can't get much more homey than that, but for the first time in my life, my hometown stopped feeling like home. I felt as if I was on vacation in a normal family vacation spot. I was around and with everything that I had missed over the past months at college, but I was still missing all of those things, but now I was just missing them about my college town.

And for once, I was completely confused as to what "home" really was to me. My hometown will always be my hometown and where I learned everything, but it no longer felt like "home" to me. My college town doesn't replace my hometown by any means, but it is the place that I took my next step and gained so many wonderful friends. The more I sit and think about it, the more I realize that home isn't a place, but it becomes the people who mean the most to you.