I remember packing all of my stuff into my mom’s car the morning of move-in day, and wondering what life in my small college town was going to be like. I was scared for the most part, but excited to start a new chapter in my life. As the year went on, I became more and more comfortable with being away from home. I made so many new friends and connections that I never expected to make my freshman year. I also noticed I wasn’t communicating with people back home as often as I thought I would.

When the spring semester came to a close, I was packing all of my stuff back into my mom’s car to go back home, and I wondered what life back home was going to be like after being away for so long.

The first week or two of being at home seemed how it was the previous summer. I was getting ready to go back to work and I was talking with people about making plans to hang out during the summer. It seemed like nothing had really changed. Then I started to work a lot more often, and the people who I talked to constantly the summer before barely spoke to me. My days consisted of going to the gym, going to work and then coming home to go to sleep. It was a routine that I could live with, but it was not a routine I loved.

One day, I was trying to make plans with a few of my friends, and I got this feeling that everything was different. I was talking to them the way I used to, but somehow it still felt foreign to me. I didn’t know what to think of it, so I went and consulted with my mom. I told her about how I was confused and how everything felt different, but I was going about my day how I used to when I was home last summer. She told me that it wasn’t my fault or anyone else’s fault that things felt different. I went away for school, and some people stayed. I’ve changed, they’ve changed, and that’s okay. I would get so frustrated because I felt like I had done something wrong. Did I say something? Did I do something? She reassured me that I had done nothing wrong, and neither did they. Time just changes things.

Now that summer is coming to an end and I am starting to get things ready for my move-in day, which is 24 days away from when I was writing this (I might be keeping count), I’ve sat and thought about how different next summer is going to be. Am I going to have any contact with anyone back home? Am I even going to come home? I tell myself not to think about it too much, things happen, people change, and it’s something that no one can control. I just have to focus on me. Sure, time changes things, but it's a part of life that I’ve learned to accept.