Going away to college far from home isn't a walk in the park. It takes a lot of courage to leave your comfort zone and go into a fully unfamiliar place. It takes a lot for an 18-year-old to pack up, leave his or her family, friends and home for several months until returning for a break. It takes a lot for that 18-year-old to look back in his or her bedroom and see a room that was no longer going to be inhabited for more than a weekend at a time. A bedroom with only a few belongings that weren't important enough to be brought along on the new journey. A bedroom with a bed that would remain made for months.

I looked back at my room the day I left and saw nothing but walls and a carpet.

Empty.

When I packed up my things in New Jersey to embark on a new journey to start my undergraduate degree at the University of South Carolina, I packed up everything.

There was no pile for the clothes I was planning on bringing to school once Fall Break arrived. There was no coming back to the bed that I slept in all my life, or the kitchen my mom cooked in each evening.

There was no turning back.

I lived in my home for 18 years. It was essentially all I knew. I rode my first bike on my sidewalk, learned to shoot a basketball in my backyard, fed my dog each morning out of that pantry in the kitchen. And just like that, I had to say goodbye.

My first year of college, I was resentful. Resentful that I had to move away, resentful that some child was going to be occupying my room, my bed, shooting basketballs in my backyard, making all these memories that were mine.

But then one day, I found comfort in it.

A family was going to get to experience the same joy I felt in that home with my family. A family was going to get to love that house, have all of their firsts as a family in that house, just as my family did. And that is a humbling thought.

That house was singlehandedly my favorite place on earth. Like I said, it was a place I brought my friends, a place where I cuddled my dog, a place where I learned all of my firsts in life.

And while I'm nostalgic of my childhood home, I wouldn't trade my situation in a heartbeat.

I left that house as a full-time resident. Everyone always says coming back after college, it's a weird feeling. You feel like a nomad. The house itself wouldn't have changed, but living in it would have. It would've had the same smell, the same scrapes on the wall that I gave it, the same stains on the carpet.

But it wouldn't have had the same feeling.

I never had to be considered just a visitor in that home. It was mine. And if I had come back to that home on my fall break of freshman year, I would have felt a very different way about it.

Leaving my home on that day in August when I was embarking upon such a transitional time already wasn't easy. I was experiencing a rollercoaster of emotions. But I believe everything happens for a reason, and I learned that location is simply just a grid on the globe—latitude and longitude. My favorite memories of that home weren't the stains I made on the carpet or the scrapes on the wall, but the stories behind them and the people who shared those stories. Every scrape and every stain and every moment in that home shaped me into the person I am today.

I have been fortunate enough to make new stains and new scrapes in a new home with my loved ones (sorry, Mom). And while I'm forever grateful for my childhood in that home, I am even more grateful to make new memories with the ones I love and grow in a new home.

That house was built 19 years ago for my family to cherish and grow in. But in reality, that house built me. I can't wait to see what type of construction happens moving forward in my new forever home.