It is that time of year again, when bins are filled back up with winter sweaters and miscellaneous memorabilia collected from freshman year. As we turn our backs to the unvacuumed floors and command-strip damaged walls of the small space we made into a home, now what? We did not get that summer internship or that job in the big city. So, we get to haul it all back home with mom and dad and try to pick up and rebuild the pieces of the bridges we so boldly burned after graduation. Welcome to summer as a college student!

As I packed my dorm room into my dad’s truck, the idea of what was next already had set in, and it set in hard. I said goodbye to my new set of friends, that had quickly become my family, that would be more than five hours away from me for the next four months. I was leaving my support system behind to go reunite with a group of strangers I once called friends. The first year of college changes people, and I know that I would find a group of people that have grown into beautiful, mature adults that I will hardly recognize. I will listen to stories of late nights and explanations of confusing majors with big names over a dinner at a local Leo’s. I will spend the rest of my “Freshman Year College Fund” savings on dinners to make up for lost time. Because now, instead of going over to a house to just chill, it’s coffee or dinner dates for a quick catch up. The excitement of seeing old friends has died out. It died out around winter break, when I realized that people move on, and so do those old friendships. I started to realize right before high school graduation that there are such things as school friends, and friends I actively spent time with. That ratio was about 100:2. That had to be the scariest realization. It was scary because I knew I had outgrown my time there, and it was time to move on. But now I am back, and those two friends I used to have are older and wiser and living their own lives. One went off to school in Chicago, and the other moved an hour away from our hometown before heading to college. Life moves on, and having to move backwards is hard, especially when you are already running full speed ahead.

Day two at home, and I had managed to unpack three suitcases, three bins and too many piles of random things I managed to shove stuff in. You never realize how blessed you are to have everything set up until you have to pack and unpack an entire room’s worth full of stuff. I sat in my childhood room, looking at Bar Mitzvah party and dance team pictures, trophies, and paper plate awards, and realized how much I truly have changed. Who I was when I left that room is not who I am now. I am still a pastel wearing, theater loving geek. But the rest of the trinkets that haunt my room and used to represent who I was, just do not reflect who I am anymore. I feel like a guest in my own home. It also does not help that my brothers remind on a daily basis, as well as when I first walked in the door that, “they have a system that won’t be screwed up.” Whatever that meant at the time, I am slowly figuring it out as I end my first week back at home.

This was a place I ran away from 9 or 10 months ago. As I came closer and closer to the end of my senior year, going out of state to college seemed to be the only solution to all the problems I had accumulated over the past four years. So coming back was something I never thought I would have to do, at least not for more than a few weeks. Home was a place I was sick, alone, uninspired and lost. I loved my family, but for myself, I needed a new place. I needed something that, I felt at the time, could save me. Even before I got home, I was scared I would fall back into old habits. I had become such a healthy person in college, both physically and mentally, that I have never been happier. The idea of losing that was frightening.

So this is to any senior struggling to find their place right now. You are not alone. Your time is right around the corner. College is the time to find the people who are just like you. My entire life, I was surrounded by the student-government/ leadership kids. They were the popular kids who really cared about their grades and always looked like they had their life together. It was like a walking J-Crew ad. But now I have a home with a bunch of hippies that want to do nothing but go on nature walks and create art. I have found my people, and I have found my happiness. Go find yours! I promise you will. And don’t worry. My J-Crew friends are still back home to catch up with. It is just that they have their people, and now, I have mine.

So I stopped looking at my situation as moving backwards. One day I was sitting in my room and remembered all of the things I wanted to do over the year that I did not have time for. I am a playwright and I love to read. So now I am making time to write, and I know you can’t see it, but there is a real book next to me! I found my outlet. I think I have cracked the code to life! Find something that makes you happy. Do it until you are bored, and move on. I am not even twenty yet, and I was looking at life like I hit a midlife crisis. I needed this reality check, because I needed to be reminded that it is okay to be scared, and it is okay to have nothing to do. I needed to be inspired by boredom and nothingness. So to my seniors, be ready. Your life is just about to start! And to my college freshman who are home for the summer, sleep in until twelve in the afternoon. Read that book you never had time to read. Go for that run. Take care of yourself, and be inspired! Because I hear that sophomore year sucks. So enjoy nothingness and appreciate the things you miss.