It feels weird coming home, after a year away, like you are coming back to a life you haven't been living for the past few months. There is a whole different routine at school vs. at home. At school you get up, go to class, go to the gym, spend time with friends, do inordinate amounts of work, etc. At home now, before I start work, I make my own routine, figure out how to fill the day.
It's interesting because when I'm at college I tell stories of people and places back home and when I'm home I tell stories of people and places at college. I tell my college friends, who are an important part of my life, about the places and people that were important in my life earlier. It's crazy to think that one half of my life doesn't know the other half.
When I am at home, I am a daughter, a sister, a friend, most of my identity is tied into relation to other people- which I don't mind. After all, the people around me made me who I am. When I am at college my identity is first and foremost a student and a friend. These two identities are the whole of who I am.
I often think about this when I am on the plane ride back to school or to home. It feels like I am transferring between one life and the next. Especially being on opposite coasts, the disconnect feels real.
Although it does feel odd, leading two different lives, I wouldn't change it for anything. I like who I am, back home with my family and my high school friends and I like who I am at college, studying nursing and forming life long friendships. I know that one day these two personalities will come together and my identity will be whole. So I try to do my best in both identities, after all it's part of who I am and who I'll become.