Like most college students I don't have the opportunity or the means to go home to my parents very often. And like most college students I don't really want to go back home besides the free food, free laundry service, and to see our dogs and cats. But once in awhile that magical opportunity comes along where we have the time and the transportation means to go home when it isn't a holiday break. Unfortunately this opportunity usually means we need something or we just need a break from school and to not think about our many responsibilities as students, giving our parents their job of taking care of us back to them once again. My reason for going home would be the latter.
When my older sister left for college I noticed that everytime she came home it was with less enthusiasm and for shorter periods of time. At first I hated having her home, our rooms share a wall and she would always yell at me for playing music too early in the morning, her not being used to my 6:30am alarms so I wouldn't be late to homeroom at 7:30am. But the less she came the more I missed her and the more I wanted her to stay longer.
Now, being a college student myself, I understand why she didn't come home as often the longer she was at university. As a student our lives are at that college. Our friends, our jobs, our social lives, our current place of residence with all of our favorite things and the bed we've learned to love. That college campus starts to feel like home after a very short amount of time, the place we used to call home feels distant and the comfortable homey feeling inaccessible and unavailable.
Is going home really going home anymore?
Does the disconnect between family and starting your own life distance you from your hometown and your childhood home?
College creates a freedom that most young people never had the chance to experience before, and a lot of growth happens in that time that most don't even notice, it's them living their lives day to day. Moving forward in life is scary and challenging, but it also just happens and most don't necessarily notice it. Every day is another day and another opportunity to text the person you like to go get lunch or to sit and watch Netflix for three hours. It's just life moving forward, it doesn't matter how it turns out, making those decisions changes your life one way or another.
Making these decisions is our opportunity to remove ourselves from depending on our parents and our families to tell us how to live life, no matter how small the decisions may be they are ours to make. Our main responsibility as young adults and students is to live life how we want to, to figure out what is best for us.
Starting our own lives usually means moving away and finding a new place to call home. For the time being that gets to be an amazing place where we get to learn what we want and to be surrounded by others just like us, just trying to figure out life. Eventually we'll all move on, our beloved college campus no longer feeling like home but just as distant as our home town felt.
Returning home is always amazing. Our parents are happy to see us, we're in a town where we know how to get everywhere you need to go, and food that isn't microwavable mac'n'cheese or ramen is always available. We feel at home, but also don't. We miss our college campus in the back of our minds, our friends, our room, our favorite spot on our futon where we do all of our homework. Having two places that feel like home is great, but one diminishes the other.
As I drive home tomorrow, all seven hours to the chilly Upper Peninsula of Michigan, I'll be missing my bed and my friends, but I'll also be looking forward to hugging my parents and my dogs once again. The disconnect of having two homes and the floating, unavailable feelings of not belonging to one place or another will drift through my mind with every passing road sign. I won't mind it all too much though, it's just life moving forward.
