As a freshman in college going approximately 388 miles (a.k.a. roughly 6 hours) away from everything I've ever known, weekend trips home are pretty much out of the question. That means the few times a year that I can venture back home mean so much to me! Luckily with the way my schedule was arranged this semester, I was able to take a short "fall break" in mid-October. While this was an awesome few days spent visiting my high school, sleeping in late, and enjoying my mom's cooking, this was not nearly as eventful and thought-provoking as my recent Thanksgiving break.

1. Living out of a suitcase is weird... but especially in your own bedroom.

I have lived in the same house my whole life. While I moved into my older brother's room once he moved away to college, everything otherwise has always been the same. All of my clothes have remained hung up in my attempted color coding organization and my dresser has been the same cluttered mess for as long as I can remember.

So you can only imagine how hard it was for me to prioritize what I was going to bring to college when it came time to move in the fall. Essentially, I decided to bring just about everything I own, therefore leaving very little in my bedroom back home. This means when it comes time for break, I am then having to pack, only to be going home? Weird.

2. I clearly didn't appreciate my parent's cooking for the previous 17 years of my life.

So if you read my last article, you have a pretty clear understanding that I am quite a picky eater. Being a picky eater in college is a tough task to overcome because there's a limited amount of options (especially healthy ones).

While I never really loved my mom strongly encouraging me to eat my vegetables and try new foods, I did not realize how much I wouldn't be doing these things without her reminders. Not only have I just simply missed my dad's burgers and my mom's potatoes, but it has taken a little more dedication than I thought it would to stay healthy and try new things!

3. A lot of things change but some things never do.

Like I had mentioned before, I was fortunate enough to have a short fall break in October. However, since this was unique to my circumstance, most of my close friends from home did not have this break. This meant Thanksgiving break was my first time getting to see them since we all left in August, and it was so exciting!

For the past few years, my friends and I have had a tradition to have "Friendsgiving" on the night before actual Thanksgiving day. While I know I was a bit nervous to see everyone and hear all of the exciting stories of new friends and crazy adventures in college, I can confidently say that the minute I walked in, it felt like absolutely nothing had changed.

The same inside jokes that we used to share were right back in action, and the outgoing personalities of my friends were the exact same. In a similar sense, it is a tradition where I am from to attend the "Turkey Bowl" on Thanksgiving morning (It's a football game between my two local all-boys high school).

While I had spent the night before laughing and reminiscing with my close friend group, I knew going to the turkey bowl would be a way to see all of my fellow classmates and guy friends that I hadn't seen in a few months. Nearly in the exact same sense that I had felt before, everything was exactly the same and like we had never left. "Friend groups" walked around together, high school "relationships" rekindled in the awkward way that they had left, and pictures with just about every one I knew were taken. It's easy to say, being there made my heart so full.

So all in all, college is an exciting time full of new friends, big changes, and hard decisions, but nothing can quite compare to the feeling of getting to go home for the first time and seeing the people who made you who you are today!