When I was in the seventh grade, my creative writing teacher had us write and perform slam poetry for a final project. As I began thinking of something I felt passionate about, enough to write something actually meaningful, I realized for me that was my home. For the first eighteen years of my life, home was a concrete noun. It was on the backroads of Bradenton, Florida, across the street from the horse ranch, with the yellow Volkswagen Beetle parked by the rope swing.

It was where I knew my place– who I was friends with, what I was involved with, where I would be at all hours of the day. And I loved it more than words can express; it was who I was. I graduated alongside the same people in fifth grade as I did in twelfth, so it goes without saying that I was at least a little excited for the fresh start that college would bring. As I packed up my room, took down all the old dance team ribbons and newspaper articles, worked one last Monday night at the local pizzeria, and watched the sunrise over the island for the last time, I said goodbye to this place.

Then all of a sudden, “home” was no longer my home.

This teeter-totter between towns made me feel as though I lost a sense of identity. My college town didn’t feel like home because my family wasn’t there; my hometown didn’t feel like home because my friends weren’t there. Something was missing no matter where I went, and this was something I struggled with immensely. I like to pretend I did a pretty good job at masking this, but I think anyone who knew me those first few months could see I was drowning in confusion. It was a lack of feeling whole, and that’s not something easy to hide.

Then I realized, home didn’t have to be concrete.

Home was not a building, or a street, or a school, but it was the way those things made me feel. Home was carving initials into the wooden dock as the sunset painted our small-town sky shades of pink. Home was my favorite meal on the table when I came home from practice every week. Home was midnight karaoke sessions trying to make it home for curfew and post high school football game runs to Applebee’s for half priced apps.

Rather, home was also watching that same sun set over a different dock, 150 miles away, with friends who made the scary transition seem a little more manageable. It was finding new favorite meals and making them in a dorm hall kitchen, filming it all for annoying Snapchat series. It was midnight dance parties trying not to get caught past “quiet hours” and post college football game Domino’s orders.

It took many months for me to realize that maybe I did lose a part of myself when I moved to college. I lost familiarity, I lost friends, I lost my giant bed with the memory foam mattress (really, I wish someone would have warned me about dorm beds). But in retrospect, I think I’ve finally come to terms with the fact that that’s ok – that was all a part of growing up.

I wish someone would have told me then that while loss is scary, there is so much to be gained. There is a whole world of people to befriend and experiences to have, and you’ll never get the chance to have something new if you can’t say goodbye to something old. Now, over a year later, I realize how lucky I am to have two places that feel like home.

So to steal a line from that poem I wrote nearly seven years back: “they say home is where the heart is, but I think I disagree. I think my heart will define whatever my home is”.