Like so many other 18-year-olds, the moment I left home for college was simultaneously the most exhilarating as well as terrifyingly thrilling moment of my life. Most of my belongings were crammed into two large rolling duffle bags and a backpacking pack that I kept praying would stay under fifty pounds at check-in at O’Hare Airport. I woke at the crack of dawn to drive to the airport, so on the taxi ride I was still able to absorbe the memories of my childhood town through the pale yellows and pinks of the morning sunrise illuminating the manicured and dewey green lawns.
As I drove past my high school, I smirked, remembering the tomfoolery that was held within its walls. We crossed the intersections of downtown Lake Forest, Illinois, and I found myself wishing the car would stop for just a split second longer at each stop sign so I could take everything all in. Trying to capture each storefront, the old Toy Shop, Kiddles, the original Marshall Field’s, the book store. We drove past the athletic campus of my high school where I spent Friday nights at football games, past the park that my friends and I would hang out at until two am, and past my childhood home I had just moved out of two weeks prior. Every storefront, every park, every forest trail had a memory embedded within it. From childhood adventuring, to long bike rides, to staying out too late with that one high school boyfriend, I knew every crevice of this town, it held no secrets from me, the place where I learnt everything but had no more to learn from.
It started, of course, with being transplanted a thousand miles away. Unlike some of my classmates and high school friends going to school close to home, I never had the option to go home for a weekend or anything other than Thanksgiving and Christmas. I jumped into college life fully ready to find a new life, one that was far away from my old one.
Gradually, I felt the ties to the people from home be cut off one by one. There were countless people that I never talked to after graduating from high school, my old science partners, team mates, and those people you always pass in the hallway and give a “sup” nod but never hang out with. The harder cuts were the people I had been good friends with, the ones I always really liked being around, who saw me grow up, the ones who I would spend countless hours with in basements laughing until the early morning. The people who wrote in my yearbook promising to stay in touch but were suddenly too busy to reach out. Something that I ended up being at fault for just as equally. There were the teachers that I promised to stay in contact with but never did. Suddenly, the rearranging of my “best friend” list on snap chat started to take place, with old “best friends” being replaced with new college friends.
I was, and am not, one of those people that never wanted to leave their home town. In fact, I was one of the ones that was rearing to go. All my friends from home knew how ready I was to get out of the confining quarters of our north-of-Chicago suburban home. I applied to go to my school knowing full well that I wanted out of the confining bubble I had been raised in. I don’t regret having grown up in Lake Forest, for without that base I wouldn’t be the person I am today. However, I was ready to put my Lake Forest book down and pick up my Colorado adventure tale.
It has only been a year since leaving the comfort of my home. Now, when I come home it feels as if I’m only visiting, which in reality is all I’m doing. When I look at Lake Michigan it reminds me of childhood and days past. As I stare out across the vast expanse of sparkling, blue water when I go on walks with my dog I often find my thoughts drifting towards the West and the mountains. When I am home, I appreciate my family and love to catch up, but I miss the new life that has been forged for me a thousand miles away.
At first, I wondered why? Why was I unhappy being back where I grew up? Granted, I was in a new, strange house, but I still had my family and a couple good friends back in the good 'ole LF, why was I so ready to go back to Colorado almost instantaneously? After grappling with this question for great lengths of time, I am just beginning to understand. In high school I was an insider dreaming of getting out, the girl that was always looking at google images of places never been but always dreamt about, following the nat geo Instagram and trying to live through it vicariously, wishing to go on my own adventures. Now, I am the girl who has left and found her place elsewhere. Lake Forest will always be my childhood home, but now, I’m making a new one. One where I make the rules, choose who I am, and what I want to do.
One of the first things people ask when they meet you is, “where are you from” and for me it will always be Lake Forest, I will always cherish the memories, the times had, and days past. The lake will always be living in my memories, the sand bears that I molded with my Dad are ever present in my mind. I can still see the old forest preserve across my old street and imagine going exploring once more, finding new plants, and witnessing the birds fly in and out. I pass the groups of high school students now, taking over our old spot on the front lawn of the high school during lunch/free periods and I see myself in them. I see it in my siblings as they each go on their own journeys through high school and experience their own Lake Forest, one that no one else could replicate.
The thing about childhood is that it is fleeting, you don’t remember every moment, but every moment makes you into the person you become. Though Lake Forest may not be where I belong at this stage in my life, I do believe that it is an incredible place to have had the honor of growing up in. I wish to continue to visit the rest of my life, and though I doubt it will become my forever home again, it was the best childhood home I could ask for.
