With the holidays all around us, the only thing that seems to be on the minds of everyone is the idea of going home. As much as the next person, I'm excited to go home and visit family, see friends I haven't seen since high school and to of course visit with my favorite animals on the planet.

Going home for me has become a less momentous occasion though for me than I would expect it to be, and no it isn't some pent-up anger against the holidays or any scarring memories preventing a longing to go home. Shortly after I left for college, my parents moved about 40 minutes (38 if you're being exact from door to door) from the place I would consider my home. With the start of the school year and the chaos of creating a schedule that works for me and also grants me free time, I wasn't able to ever go back to my house after leaving for college.

It's not about the house though because home will always be with the people I shared it with, but as the holiday rolls around, it's a weird idea that I might be sleeping on the couch just as I did for Thanksgiving. Only this time, I'll be doing it for a much longer period of time.

Dorm life definitely doesn't feel like a true home to me either, and without a place to belong it just feels as though I'm stuck somewhere in the middle. If I go home, I live out of boxes, if I stay at the dorm, I live in a hotel-style building surrounded by hundred of my closest friends AKA the 20 or so people that I've known for only a few months and a couple hundred more that seem to show up randomly and make me question whether they actually live in my dorm or not.

Everyone else claims it's just as weird for them to go home, but it tends to feel like they don't understand, because at least what they return to is a familiar place and a place close to all the people they grew up with.

Aside from the house though, we live far enough away from relatives that I don't always see them even when I go back, leaving just my parents and me to this strange new avocado-colored home. Of course, we're expecting my brother to be there for break as well this time around, which is exciting and different from when he was heavy into college and struggled himself to find time to come back.

It just won't be the same, especially compared to last year when we hosted a foreign exchange student and I had a baby brother there with me all the time too. Not having him around this time of year is definitely the hardest part about him living in Spain, but we've already discussed video chatting around Christmas to make it feel like he's as there as he could be.

With all the substantial changes in comparison to last year, it just a little frightening to go home for the holidays, and it's a little hard for the house to feel like home without everyone in it. Even over Thanksgiving, I only saw my relatives on that Thursday because we drove up and back all in one day.

It just makes me miss home all the more and furthers my fear that going back for my favorite holiday won't live up to it's usual hype this year because it might not feel like home for the holidays.