It is the end of fall semester.
Finals are over. It is the holiday season, and for many college students, it is time to go home.
The problem is that the word home no longer has a clear definition.
I have struggled with what I call the “Paradox of Home” since my freshman year of college.
It is a paradox because “home” is both a word that brings me comfort and a word that brings me dread. I no longer quite understand what it means.
Growing up, home was where my parents lived. Home was the white and brick house with that straggly tree in the front and the steps that were always slippery in the winter. Home was a never changing. After school, we drove home. After staying at a friend’s house for the night, we always returned to that one place.
Then, I grew up. I moved away. I went off to a tiny liberal arts college in the middle of Ohio, and suddenly, home was not the same anymore.
Do not misunderstand me, I love my house, and I love my family. As I write this, my dog is snoring adorably at my feet and my two cats are curled up together in front of the fire place. I am wrapped in a warm blanket and the Christmas lights are adding a gentle, persistent twinkle to the otherwise gray room. It is snowing outside. My current situation is pretty incredible.
Still.
This does not feel like the same place I remember. There is something different and strange about being here now that did not exist before. I have been struggling to pinpoint exactly what since I moved out last year and went to school, and I think I have found it.
This house is not my home anymore.
It sounds terribly cliché doesn’t it?
That does not make it any less true.
I have always been something of a homebody. I prefer staying in with a good movie to going out to a party, and I love the nights spent reading a good book curled up by my fireplace. I am very comfortable in my house; it is my safe space and my sanctuary.
It is still all of those things, but the word home does not quite capture the feeling anymore.
According to Oxford Living Dictionaries, the word home has a few definitions. My favorite is the following: It is a noun, and means, “A place where something flourishes, is most typically found, or from which it originates.”
The word “flourishes” is what truly speaks to my own personal definition of what it means to feel at home. To me, home means a safe place, a place where I can be myself fully, completely, and without remorse. Home is where I am the happiest.
This word no longer applies to the house where I grew up.
My dorm room is also my home.
The friends that I have made at school are my home.
My family is my home.
Returning to this house is bittersweet, which seems to be a paradoxical feeling. I spent the past few weeks of this fall semester longing for home. I found myself saying often, while surrounded by piles of homework and near tears, “I just want to go home.”
I realize now, though, that I was not truly longing for my house. As I was packing my bags after my last final, I found myself suddenly not wanting to leave. I wanted to stay at school. I was relieved that finals were over, but my dorm room had become my safe space this semester. It was a place where I “flourished” I did my work, I hung out with friends, I built a giant pillow fort. My roommate had decorated the room for Christmas, and everything felt cozy and magical. I did not want to leave this place, or my friends. I was ecstatic to see my family and my twin sister, and my dog, but I built a family here too, and I was leaving them for an entire month.
When I was a freshman in college I struggled with this feeling, this paradox of what and where my home was. I was so conflicted about my sadness leaving school and my odd reluctance to see my parents. Wasn’t that wrong? Shouldn’t I want to leave? Shouldn’t I want to come home?
I realize now that these feelings are perfectly natural, valid, and legitimate.
It is okay to have a home in more than one place.
It is okay to love my school family and my family at home.
Home is the place where you feel safe, where you flourish, and where you thrive.
As you grow up and venture out into the world, it is only natural that those terms begin to apply to multiple places.
College freshman, do not feel terrible or guilty if this homecoming is not quite as magical as you expected.
Home is a complex word with multiple definitions.
Do not try and fit it into a box.
Embrace its complexity, and know that your feelings are valid.
Happy holidays.
Welcome home.
