Yesterday, as I was walking down campus to reach my college dorm at the college borders, a few friends, returning from an event, pulled up in a familiar car and asked me where I was going. The time was just past midnight, and I had been walking for about 10-15 minutes from another house across campus. My only response was that I was on my way "home." I took a step back, and immediately felt conscious of my use of the word; this sense of bewilderment lingered after the conversation, after I went up two flights of steps to my cozy room straight ahead, after I brushed my teeth, drank half a bottle of water, turned on the fan, turned off the lights, and then fell right into my bed.

Home. What does that even mean? Multiple times I've written about the fluidity involved with combining a sense of home coincide and conflict with an identity, how I feel staying in my official home during break periods, and the idea of describing home as a mental landscape rather than a physical one. Time and time again, I've been redefining what home means to me and whether or not I'll ever have a permanent one.

When I wake up, I see myself in a place that was given to me for the year. I see the stiff blinds that come down if you're not too careful, the computer still not put together, the paper bags containing the ghosts of books bought from the bookstore, my fridge and the tepid water bottles nearby, the trove of shirts, pants, and shoes hanging in the closet, glow -in-the-dark ceiling remnants, and the toiletries balancing themselves on the shelf. For now, I think: this is home. Where I can be alone with my thoughts. Where I don't have to feel judged or scrutinized. Where I can be the most authentic form of myself.

It is only in that precise moment, away from everyone and everything, in which I can truly feel a sense of home.