When I was 15 I left home for the first time. I got two suitcases. Two suitcases to shove summer sun dresses, windbreakers, sandals and sneakers and even my ski gear into. I had pictures and cards and boxes upon boxes of contacts wrapped carefully in paper and cloth to keep it from getting crushed. Looking around my room, drawers empty, closet seeming now just a little less full, all I could see was the stuff I was leaving behind. The teddy bear my grandmother had given me when I was a baby, the books that I was always seeming to be continuously leafing through, my dog, napping as he always did in front of the window. When I was packing those suitcases, I was packing a new life. A life whose future was blurry, vague, almost completely unknown to me. I had to make guesses on what to bring based on weather reports and maps. I spent countless hours shoving piles of cloth in and out of those suitcases, each pile getting a little bit smaller each time. I have packed these suitcases every year since then, and with each passing year, I find that I bring less and less stuff. There are less pictures in my bag now, less contacts. At first it scared me a little, not having the subtle reminders of home, that being away meant that I was going to change. Maybe I did change, and every year I can see that change in with what stays and what doesn't. Maybe I do so knowing that my roots will never change and home will always be there waiting for me. Every year I find myself coming back to the same scrap book, the same teddy bear and the same books. They remind me of the life I had in a place I lived for a certain time. But with every year home just feels farther and farther away.