Seeing the red, orange and yellow from the sky made me jump up and down in my seat. A huge smile appeared on my face as I saw the rivers, fields and scenery of home I knew so well. It had been three months since I had been in the mitten state, and although I hadn't really been homesick in my time away, something about seeing Michigan again got me more excited than I could have even anticipated.
Walking out of the airport, the first thing to hit me was the temperature. Even a hot winter for Michigan was torture compared to the regular 80+ degree days we had been enjoying down south. But that's past the point. What really REALLY hit me is what I feel like hits every student on their first trip back home. It's the strangest mix of feeling like a complete stranger and feeling like you had never left; a bizarre twist of nostalgia and detachedness.
Going back to my old high school really drove this home for me. Walking in to surprise my little brother may have been the highlight of my life, but what came afterward was a strange sort of dazed sensation as I was left to wander the school. Going through each hall produced new memories, but those would quickly be interrupted as I noticed new things about the school that had changed since I had left. The senior tiles in our designated "senior hall" that had been painted by me and my peers had been replaced. Our library had been redone to the point that when I walked in, I was so startled that I wasn't sure if I had gotten lost. And the time passing between hours... well, that was like an out of body experience. Everything seemed so far removed from the life I had lived just a few short months earlier; yet, at the same time, it was like I had just been through a day at the high school yesterday.
The time spent at home, while amazing, was not what I expected. Seeing old friends, catching up, and especially visiting the "old stomping grounds" brought about a wave of emotions that I hadn't prepared myself for. By the time I was flying back over those beautiful fall colors on my way to Alabama, I had decided that it was okay that my life had moved on. While reliving the glory days is fun, change is inevitable, and seeing my friends at their colleges only reinforced that idea. It took that first time going home and a little bit of looking back to help me embrace the move forward in my life, so for that, thank you Michigan.
