Before moving away for college, everybody told me it was the time for self-discovery. It was the perfect time to follow dreams and passions and become involved in different activities and opportunities my small town had never offered.

Those same people also reminded me how special it is coming home, but for different reasons than I would have imagined. However, after a long year at college, I finally realized what they were referring to after spending three weeks in my small town.

After getting over the emotions of leaving my college friends, I had honestly been excited to come home. Moving from a small town into the city was a culture shock for me. To me, it felt as if everybody was moving at full-speed during every hour of every day, and I felt the need to keep up with them as well.

Home is a much more relaxed environment and finally gives me the opportunity to breathe and unwind for a short period of time. I adore being surrounded by my family, playing fetch with my dog in the backyard, reading on the front porch, catching up with old friends, and revisiting destinations filled with precious memories.

Home looks essentially the same ever since I left. My room is still overflowing with books, my favorite posters still maintaining their place on my wall. High school memorabilia is scattered throughout my room. Clothes I wore during middle school are spilling from my closet doors.

Extended family and family friends still approach me in the local grocery store and strike up conversations about my college experience. The same families I had witnessed attending church every Sunday when I was home still sat two pews up from my dad and I during mass.

I am not sure why I had expected mass amounts of change in my hometown by the time I returned. Since I had gone through such expansive changes since moving to college, I assumed other aspects of familiarity, such as home, would change with me.

But from my perspective, everything in my hometown looked exactly the same, except for me.

The aspect of life most surprising during my return home was reconnecting with old friends from high school. After our time apart, I realized I had lost touch with those I had otherwise spent every school day with. Similar to me, each of them had escaped this small town and found better opportunities elsewhere.

Seeing the people I had known since kindergarten change more in nine months compared to their entire K-12 career was shocking. Even though I miss morning walks through the hallways and coffee dates on Tuesday afternoons, I will always prefer seeing my friends thrive and grow, finally becoming truly happy. For them, too, home now possessed a different feeling.

And just because it doesn't feel like home, doesn't mean it isn't. I just have another apartment with my three best friends waiting for me at college. I'm blessed to not have only one home but two.