Any college student or person who has moved away from home and created a new "home" for themselves knows that even though you live somewhere else now, the place you lived before will still always be your home, and there are quite a few struggles that come with that.

I can't say enough how much I love my new home in Oxford, or how much I love the life I'm creating there. I'm so happy there and I couldn't ask for anything better, yet even while I'm enjoying my life there I can't help but miss my life back home. I miss my family and friends and the simplicity I suppose of the life I once knew. So when this semester came to a close I was eager to get home to the place I've been missing so much.

I have so enjoyed being back home for this incredibly long winter break. I've gotten to sleep in my old room, see so many people I haven't seen in a long time, and I've gotten to spend a lot of time with my family, friends, and those I love so dearly. Everything I was missing I now have right at my fingertips, and yet, I find myself missing my life back at school again! Just as I was before I came home for break, I am now counting down the days until I get to return to my other home! Not because I am not so loving my time on break, but because of something I can't understand- how I never seem completely at home, because no matter what, a piece of my heart is still elsewhere.

This is the struggle of loving two places so much. I can never be one place without, on some level big or small, missing the other. If only the two places could somehow merge, or every single person I love so much from both places could all just be in the same place all at once! But, as we all know, we can't always have it all.

Both of my homes offer different things that make me happy. My HOME home is the place I grew up and has so many of the most important people to me there. I find safety, contentment, love and countless other feelings here. This is the place that and people who made me who I am today. It is the place I will always call home, but not my only home.

My "home away from home," I guess you could say, is the place where I am paving the way for my future. I find fun, excitement, responsibility, adventure, friendship, and so much more here. I couldn't ask for a better place to begin my adult life or any better people to start it with than the ones I have here... except of course the people from my hometown who I continue to miss while I'm here.

So, as I'm writing this I am preparing to return back to school (my other home), and even though I've been missing it so much, I'm really thinking it's going to be pretty hard to say goodbye to this home I've been back to for the last six weeks. It's like I am ready to go but I don't want to leave.

It's such a struggle having two homes, but I've come to realize it's also the greatest blessing. I wouldn't have all of the experiences I've had if I didn't live and love one place or the other. I wouldn't have met the greatest people or been quite so happy I don't think. While it is hard always missing people from whichever home I'm not with at the time, it is even greater knowing that you have something so wonderful that it's hard to be away from it. I couldn't ask for a better life, better people in it, or any less of a struggle that comes with loving my two homes so much.