The month of August for the majority of college students is a month of anticipation.

The anticipation of starting something new if you are an incoming first-year student or a transfer student at a new school.

The anticipation of being reunited with friends who you have not seen in three or four months, or maybe even an entire semester or quarter.

The anticipation of being free from a parent’s surveillance.

The anticipation for a new set of classes or a new, exciting, internship that was hard fought for.

The anticipation for new adventures and shenanigans with friends.

The list of anticipations could stretch on for ages. For me, however, the month of August has brought the anticipation of leaving home to the top of my list of anticipations.

To clarify, it is at the top of my list, because saying goodbye to my home and the community that enshrouds me there is something I dread and find has not gotten easier over the past year of coming and going.

In my reflections of answering the question of why my stomach churns every time I anticipate the final, yet temporary goodbyes, I come up with three answers that provide me with an explanation.

The first reason is due to comfort. I have recently been introduced to the logic that home is not a physical place per say, but a feeling. A feeling of a certain level of comfort.

When someone I was recently acquainted with and I were parting for the time being, this person made a comment that was worded to the certain extent of: “I am not sure where you consider home to be at the moment, here or at school…” at this point I immediately jumped into say, “This is definitely home.” This meaning Seattle. This being because, at the moment, I feel most comfortable being in Seattle.

It is not to say I am uncomfortable on my college campus.

In my first year, I certainly gave myself a great foundation of community that has great potential to turn into a home. However, I am also someone who takes a bit of extra time before finding myself in a place where I am totally able to feel at home. This is how it was in high school and by the end of my four years there, I can say it became a home away from home for me.

While the sweet place I ended my high school years in made me a bit naïve about how easy the transition to college would be, I have brought skills from that transition into the current, ongoing one, and am gaining the perspective that it is okay things are taking a little longer in college too.

The second reason Seattle is still my “home” is due to the community that is still in place there for me to come back to. This community is something that brings me great comfort. Over our first year away, one of my close friends from high school and I both reflected on how lucky we both are to have such strong communities who continue to lift us up and cheer us on as we continue our adventures across the country and being “home” for the summer has brought this gratitude to a new level.

Every week when I am “home” I can have lunch with one of my grandfathers; I am able to go on evening strolls to Starbucks with a friend; have dinner parties, brunch dates and picnics with friends from high school; come back to church every Sunday to give back to a community who raised me and who always welcomes me “home” with open arms.

I can go to my favorite restaurants or coffee shops, enjoy the amazing geography of Seattle. I get to see my parents every day, enjoy our range of dinner conversations, going on weekend hikes with them, summer family traditions. Most importantly I can enjoy a general feeling of ease that washes over me when I am home.

The third reason is distance. I go to school 2,300 miles away from where I spent the first 18 years of my life. Before starting my first year, people would joke with me that I was getting as far away from my parents as possible. That was not my intention of choosing the college that I did. Honestly, nine times out of ten the distance from home is not a huge sore spot for me.

However, a real wake-up call about just how far away I am from the place that feels the most home-like for me was in the last four to six weeks of the spring semester. In those final few weekends, I was left alone by my roommate and two suitemates, all of whom had gone home. These weeks brought to light how it is not as simple as a car, train, or quick plane trip to get home. It’s a six-and-a-half-hour plane trip that must be booked weeks in advance, which doesn’t make quick sprees home very practical.

Those miles between me and the community I have in Seattle turns lunches into hours long phone calls; strolls to Starbucks into letters and emails; dinner parties, brunch dates, and picnics into Snapchat streaks and FaceTime sessions; and longing for the sensation of the old ladies who greet me warmly at church. Not to mention dinner time conversations that become dinner conversations over FaceTime with me eating at my dorm room desk and family hikes and traditions that are put on hiatus.

These three reasons all sum up to make the product of the anticipation that creates a stomach full of butterflies at the thought of packing up my room and leaving for the next 14 weeks.

I know though that these goodbyes are like ripping a Band-Aid off a wound. The build-up and the anticipation of the pain is always worse than the result. The six-and-a-half-hours of plane time gives me enough time in-between the final waves to my parents as I pass through the lines of security at the airport and emerging from the metro stop back on the campus, to take some deep breaths and let the list of anticipations rearrange themselves.

I know that once I am dragging my suitcases through campuses that I will anticipate seeing my friends, starting class, becoming busy with my activities and much more.

One thing that I anticipate is that I will start calling Seattle my “home-base” and campus my “home away from home.” Perhaps it won’t happen by the end of this semester, but hopefully by the end of the year.