Aren't you so excited to go home over Christmas Break?!

I can't tell you how many times I've asked this, been asked this, or heard someone talking about their excitement. But am I really "so excited" to go back? I don't know. After leaving home I realize I have two lives now, and instead of living as a son and child, I now live as an adult student. Of course, I'm not quite the full fledged adult; however, it's more than fair to say that dorm life in college creates an excellent transition from childhood to adulthood. And living here in college is a defining point in my life.

Consider this:

You gave up your home where you built an entire 18 years of your life for the foreign concept of living in a building with hundreds of strangers your age from all around the world. Nearly two decades of your life, the most important years of your life, are given up and you adventure off to college. If you're like me and went to a college where you knew literally no one, you leave your full life for an empty life, and honestly this is both terrifying and beautiful.

A second shot arises, I had a new life to create and define. I became a new me. And then suddenly, Thanksgiving break hits. Nostalgia and reminiscence set in, I smile upon the thought of going back to Houston, thinking it will be nice to visit my family and friends.

I get back to Houston.

I unload. I hug and catch up with my family. And quickly come to realize the expectations of my return. Suddenly obligations to family arise and the nostalgias biting at my heart evolve into sadness. The love I had for people and the memories of them all turned from fond to sad as I realized everyone else found a new home as well, or got used to home without me. No longer did I think of Houston as some part of my past. Too quickly upon my return did I try and make Houston become the familiar reality it was before I left. Suddenly home was no longer my dorm, home was Houston and home was Chicago. All at once home was absent.

Consider Your First Loss

Maybe it was a hard break up or a death in the family. To get over the loss, you didn't constantly revisit and reopen the wounds. Instead you did everything you could to store away the loss in happy memories and move on. Focus on other things, your life without the loss, because in the end, the person or object of loss isn't your life. You are you and nothing else should be leading in your life. Even family.

Harsh, I know. But think about it, College is your time. College is finally you as an independent person. College is no longer you as your family or friends perceive you to be. College is a time for you to become whom you truly are. For me, I found myself identifying the majority of my self with my family and friends. I wasn't Dan Songer, instead I was some version of myself that was molded by the hands of my family and friends. I never had a chance to view life outside of the Houston bubble. Not that parents are evil, not that your friends' influences on your character are inherently bad because they aren't entirely you, but for me, I was everyone else and not myself.

The bad part about Thanksgiving break, for me, was the idea of stripping away the "College me," and trying to force myself back into the Dan that lived in Houston. What I didn't realize is that I had grown out of the mold, and by trying to force myself back into the mold, I simply broke. It was like reopening an old wound, not just looking at the scar and remembering, but tearing apart the flesh so I might enjoy the moment once again.

What is home?

I find myself coming back for winter break sitting in this airport with a delayed flight, wondering to myself, "What is home." And home, home for me is Chicago. Home isn't Houston anymore. As much as I love my friends, as much as I love my family, as much as I love my favorite sitting on the second floor of Agora drinking an Earl Grey at 1 AM, as much as I love my old self from Houston, Chicago is home now.

I now visit Houston as a new person, although at the core I am still me, I have changed.

And I sit here ready to take a visit, not to settle in.

Because as much as I may miss my old self, I won't break myself in the small chance that I may become who I was. The hardest part is realizing, when you get to your old home, that you aren't who you were. Instinctively we try to become who we were because we enter an environment our past selves lived in. But reliving the past is dangerous because it causes a sense of depersonalization and displacement. Without realizing that my old home is no longer my home, I became confused and lost a sense of who I was.

But how do we visit an absent home?

Home is wherever you live and grow. And when you leave for college, you make a new home. But for everyone back in your childhood home, they carry on in their home thinking you are still a part of it. Meanwhile, you set out creating a new home, new friends and new family. Your home has changed, theirs has not.

So go back, let it be an adventure! It is likely that your family and friends miss and love you. Let them experience the new you, let them get to know the new you. Share the person you have became with those who first grew to know and love you.

Visit your old home carefully. Visit it, don't regress to who you were. Who you are now is what matters. Where your real home is now is what matters.

Be careful to not lose your sense of identity just to relive whom you were.