College; the rite of passage into your "pre-adulthood." College is almost everything your older family members (and friends of) told you about, almost what your high school teachers described, and almost just like how it's represented in the movies. What they taught you about being away at college is how there are many parties, plenty of all-nighters, hookups/relationships, a huge lack of money, stress levels higher than the scale amount, the discovery of responsibility and most importantly; a sense of never ending freedom. They tell you that college will change your life, in which it does and will. However, there is one specific aspect of life it changes that many don't mention.
As I laid in my bed Saturday early afternoon, I could hear the faint screams of kids running down my block. They were playing what I thought to be tag in the unusually warm fall weather. As I was listening to their screams and joy in their laughter, I zoned out and remembered those fall days I came home from elementary school eager to play with the kids in my neighborhood. I'd rush inside to do whatever homework I could before asking to venture out into the front yard I loved so much. I remembered wanting to rake the leaves into neatly formed piles with my sister and neighbors only to jump in them creating a mess once again. I remembered the chilled air making my nose turn pink and leaving it dripping liquid mucus. After playing, I remembered going inside to a warm house that smelled of some type of Yankee candle burning, ready for the chicken and noodles my grandma would sometimes make for dinner. I recalled those feelings of joy and youthfulness, yet, it made me feel uneasy and somber.
Being away at college changes the way you feel when you're home. I realized those times were gone and I was growing up. The memories from my childhood of coming home will always bring me joy, but coming home from college, makes me feel something different. I no longer feel youthfully playful in my house, but older and tired. I don't feel connected to the walls with my photos on them, to the rooms I walk through, or to the scents of those Yankee candles we still buy. I don't drop my bags off and rush to play in my front yard until it's time for dinner. Instead, the room I lay in doesn't quite feel like my own. When I arrive back from college, I arrive back to a house, that feels less like a home. College has become my home, in which even my iPhone reads my actual address as "Frequently Visited" and the location of my school as "Home."
Coming home from college has made me realize that everything around me hasn't stopped moving. Things won't stop moving and changing just because I am not there. Coming home makes me feel like there's a gap in my life and as if I've been dropped into a twilight zone. There are times I even feel distant from my family. I go home and they live their lives just as they do while I'm away. I feel like a guest. They ask me about school and my life and we interact as normal. On the surface everything seems normal, but it's not. I feel different in the house I grew up in, with my family who I love dearly. Being away at college has definitely changed me, in which there is probably not going to be a time I feel "at home" again until I establish what that means for myself.
The way college has changed how I feel about home is motivating. Feeling this way is a realization that I am starting my life's journey through being away at school. I am becoming a new person. I will create new memories in new places. This change in how I feel about home, is not sad, for I will no longer feel uneasy and somber within the walls of my house, or distant from my family. I know now to instead feel appreciative and grateful for the memories it holds and the love my family is there to give.
