I just moved into my new dorm room at Brandeis University. As I unpack my boxes and belongings, I thought about moving into my dorm room at boarding school three short years ago.
Imagine a 14-year-old on her first night away from home. Sure, she has been to sleep-away camp, but this time it was different. It was going to be another three months before she would be home again. She lies on her new bed for the first time, one that has been slept in by many others before her. She closes her eyes, only to hear the shower running across the hall and the voice of her next-door neighbor on the other side of the wall. It soon becomes familiar, a part of the little things that you learn to adapt to.
As time passes, you call this place home. You do not realize it until you accidentally text your mom “I’m home” after getting back from the mall, or use your school address when you shop online. You begin to live a functioning life 8,000 miles away from your real home, no longer feeling like you are living a secret life. You find comfort in the dining hall food, fall in love with your school campus, and end up living a door away from your best friend. It feels right.
Then you go back to your real home, except it does not feel like home anymore. You see the little things that have changed since you last visited. You meet up with your friends from home, some who have stayed behind and others who have gone off to other places. You begin to exchange tales from school, and their stores involve names that you have never heard of. You try to share stories of your most memorable moments, whether it is a medieval play or dressing up for a week to earn your class ring. Your friends continue to nod and smile, but you know that they do not understand. You begin to miss your second home, your home away from home, a little more, and slowly wonder if you can still call your hometown home.
It is hard. You are constantly homesick—you miss school when you are home, and miss home when you are at school. As you travel from one place to the other, you learn to make room in your heart for both homes, as well as the people who make up those two communities. Your hometown may continue to change while you are away, but you still have the memories of your childhood and lifelong friendships, the same way you will remember your boarding school and college years after you graduate. And the most important thing is knowing that you would not have changed this lifestyle for anything else.
It is difficult to define what home is, but Sarah Dessen’s “What Happened to Goodbye” sums it up perfectly. She wrote, “Home wasn’t a set house, or a single town on a map. It was wherever the people loved you were, wherever you were together. Not a place, but a moment, and then another, building on each other like bricks to create a solid shelter that you take with you for your entire life, wherever you may go.”
It has not been easy trying to be a part of two worlds, but it is worth the time and effort. I cannot wait to find my home away from home again at Brandeis.
