One of the great things about coming home from college after a long period of junk food, exams, coursework, roommates, strict professors, and multiple unfamiliar faces is the obvious first answer — your family — followed by your dogs, friends, etc.

The second thing though — which seems so underappreciated, but prevalent any time we come home — is the actual home itself.

For me, when I land in Seattle, I realize that I let a little breath of fresh air release from my shoulders almost every time.

I smile while going through the gate, to baggage claim and even for however long I wait for someone to pick me up from the arrivals, all the way through the actual 45-minute drive home — and then there is another breath of fresh air pulling into the driveway.

There is something so cool about pulling up to your house after five or six months and feeling as though you never left.

Going up the front steps, greeting your dogs, getting a hug from your parents, seeing whatever siblings that are still home, seeing the TV on the usual program, dinner on the stove, pictures all around and just collapsing onto the couch as if you were the one with a nine-hour work day.

One of my favorite things though is seeing the decor around my house.

My mom likes quotes and sayings and we have a bunch of canvases with family sayings, framed memorabilia from my parents' wedding, block letters of our family motto, and so on.

But, the one that catches my eye every time is the one that sits on top of our double doorway leading to the back deck.

It says “When there is love in the home, there is joy in the heart.”

Being home teaches me how grateful I truly should be to have such a place to come back to every Christmas, summer, holiday, whatever the occasion may be.

One of the biggest difficulties our country seems to face sometimes is underappreciation — we always want something more, we strive for the objective rather than embracing the beauty of subjectivity.

For me, I have an extraordinarily comfortable bed at home — arrangement with the blankets, pillows, the temperature of the room — it is all to my liking every time I’m home.

When I went to college — I knew I was going to dread sleeping on the stiff, cold, and small mattresses of the dorms and furnished apartments.

Not only did I develop an appreciation for the bed I had at home, but I was enlightened that I should be thankful to have a bed at all.

I have been home from college for about a week now and I am constantly finding things that makes me so appreciative of the life I lead and it dawns on me that it was simply my house that did that.

I don’t know if it is the familiarity of where I grew up, the undenying sense of comfort, the slight freedom from everyday responsibilities or just the family atmosphere in general — but, it makes you feel safe.

And it makes you appreciate in a completely different light what you may have taken for granted before.

This is not to say that everything we acquire must be thought of as a burden because someone else can’t have it — but, we also shouldn’t dismiss how lucky we truly are in the lives we lead sometimes — because even in the smallest of possessions, there is still a great appreciation to be discovered.