Sure high school was a great time in your life. It’s where you had a lot of firsts, whether that be your first kiss, first boyfriend, first friend group, or even the first time becoming a leader of a club. There were also a good amount of first heartbreaks, first failing grade, and the first time you lied to your parents.
The list could go on and on about how good or bad high school was for you. The common denominator with all these firsts were that they occurred in your “home town.” You know, the place where you grew up and were supposed to have the best times of your life. Yeah, that place. There is a getaway from your college life and are able to go “home.”
That first year of college is the best and worst for so many reasons. It’s the best because you are able to get away from your parents, move to another city and become an actual adult. Within that first year, you joined different activities on campus and made new friends for whom you hoped would be your best friends forever. However, it's also the worst because you fight with your roommate, the worst because that boy never texted you back or even the worst because you thought you could not pass chemistry.
But through the good and bad of your first year of college you had a new support system there for you. They promised to help you get through anything. And you know what? They did.
Being “home” after the first year at college for the summer is the most radical. It is where you meet up with your group of high school friends and exchange stories about your wild nights out and then tell them how great your new friends and new life is.
The scary part with these stories is that you realize that there are so memories that you have and they aren't with your high school friends. The people that you want to talk to all the time aren’t the ones you attended kindergarten with anymore, it’s the people who helped get you through your first year away from home.
So there it is, the first summer at “home” and all you can do Is talk about college and how much you can’t wait to go back. Sure you hang out with your friends at “home” but you start to think, are they still my friends or are they just people who you have memories with?
Summer is over and sophomore year starts! FINALLY! You’re back at school, back with the people who made the first year more memorable. The first semester goes on and you only talk to one or two people from “home” and it’s to check in, you know to make sure that they still know you care.
When it comes time for the holidays you don’t want to leave school, you want to stay and be with your friends... you don’t want to go “home.”
While you’re at “home” there is not much to do but sit around and hang out with your parents. Sure you go back to your high school group, but nothing seems quite the same anymore. You don’t know everything about your “best friend’s” life anymore. You are merely just an acquaintance with old memories.
Flash forward to the summer before your senior year of college. At this point you have an internship in the city where you go to school and so do all of your friends.
You are at a point where you have made the best of your college years and you can’t even seem to remember what impact high school even had.
You have spent the summer in your college town and by now it is where you have spent at least 9 months every year for the past 3 years. It is now where you come to find that this place is your new “home.”
Your senior year breezes by and you haven’t even though about “home” and your friends and family that are still there. By now, there is only one person who you still talk to on a regular basis from "home," but even they have moved on from where you grew up.
You begin to job search and you start to look for places in the city or near your college town. Anywhere but close to where your “home” is.
It is at this time that you realize that “home” is not what it used to be. Sure you have your favorite places to eat and your favorite stores. But there is nothing there that is binding you, other than your mom, dad and the rest of your family. This place has become nothing more than a memory to you, nothing more than a place where you made your first mistakes and learned how to make yourself a better person in order to leave the town that built who you are.
This moment in time is when you realize that your “home” is no longer your “home”. It was simply a phase in your life whether it was good or bad -- but a phase that you have moved past and now your “hometown” has simply become nothing more than a location on a map.
