The most fortunate know exactly what “coming home” feels like. The colors look familiar and complete, but never dull, always vibrant. You can almost hum along with all the sounds you never noticed until the world grew silent. You can yawn happily back into the universe that makes you feel most like you, and laugh again with the family who seems to “get” that person so completely.
Some of us are so blessed, we can return to more than one home. As I prepare to go back to college for my final semester, I cannot help but think of it as a last homecoming. My squad at school is every bit as much of a family to me as the one I was born into.
It has grown over four years, and definitely includes some people who, three years ago, I never could have guessed I would grow to love with all of my heart. No matter what any of us goes through individually, no matter what arguments we have or what tension seeps in from time to time, when we gather for family dinners or movie nights the air itself rings with that familiar love. Now, as I begin a few months of lasts, the fact that my home will never feel quite the same way and that my family has to part ways honestly terrifies me.
Every family consists of connections between individual people, who, on some level, share an understanding of the human experience. Those connections never truly evaporate, even if the relationship between the people changes or fades. After graduation, I may never have a chance to spend time with my whole family together again. In fact, some people may lose touch completely as lives evolve and scatter us across the world.
As much as I want to pretend this isn’t a possibility, I know it is. Many of us have already experienced one social group changing forever after high school. However, the night we spent gathered in the dark to watch the cinematic brilliance of “Snoop Dogg’s Hood of Horrors,” the brunches that last several hours somehow, talks into the daylight about life and love and sex and politics and science and philosophy—all of these times matter.
Fear of losing something special shouldn’t stop me—or anyone—from appreciating the time and the memories still to come, nor should it become an excuse not to work as hard for all the friendships that matter so much to me here.
My family has four long months left to build our home together and spend time in each other’s company. Maybe instead of a semester of only lasts, it can become a semester of a few firsts together: first trips to new places, first time hearing and telling new crappy jokes, first time watching new corny movies, first time sharing anything we haven’t said to each other.
No matter where life throws each of us, I will always love the family I have fallen into here. I know that, when I feel alone, scared, or broken, I will always have a home with each of them. When the universe brings us together again, just for fun, to celebrate, or to mourn, I will always feel like coming home.
