“Stop This Train”

How my 20-year-old self is coming to terms with growing up.

It’s the middle of my third year in college. My third winter break at home. As the year comes to an end, I’m starting to feel the gravity that this is in fact, my second-to-last winter break ever. 2014 — only one year away from the year in “Class of 2015”, a year that sounded so distant as a freshman being addressed with that title for the first time. This time, next year, will likely be my last extended stay in the town that I’ve spent twelve years of my life growing up in.

When we first leave for college, we think of it as being “only four years”. We think, “Oh, I’ll be back soon.” It doesn’t seem permanent, but more like a longer version of sleepaway camp. We’ll be home often on breaks and we’ll see our family and high school friends and it’ll be no different from before. But it is different. At some point in the years that I spent away, trips home started feeling more like visits, and trips back to school became the journeys home.

I’ve never really felt homesick while at college. After graduating from high school, I felt more than ready to move to another state. I’m actually surprised to find myself now feeling such attachment to the place I was so eager to leave, just over two years ago. Maybe it’s the way the clothes folded away in my drawers or the books stacked upon my headboard, that haven’t been touched in years now, feel like they don’t belong to me anymore. Maybe it’s seeing my big brother’s rearranged room and realizing we’re never going to coop up in the little space between the couch and the old TV to play Soul Calibur again. Or maybe it’s just because this big house feels a little lonely without him here. But something about this time is different. Something’s made me realize that I’m never really coming back.

After returning from school last summer, I spent two weeks at home before leaving for a summer-long internship. I’ll likely be doing the same this coming year, and if everything works out I’ll be working on the other side of the country after graduation. My parents are planning to move someplace warmer as well. It’s started to hit me now, that after next year, I won’t be coming home for this long ever again. And for the first time, I feel sad about it. And however many times I complained about having nothing to do in this boring, unknown little town, or the smell drifting from the cow fields across the street to our elementary school in the mornings, or literally having the woods for a backyard — I never admitted that I loved this place. I loved this house. I loved these people. My brother, my parents, my cousins, my friends — the people whose presences I’d always taken for granted — I won’t be seeing them often anymore. And maybe I don’t feel quite ready for this, but I accept that there’s no way to stop it. There’s no reason to stop it because that’s just life; that’s growing up. I’ve never been good at letting go, but I can be grateful. Just try not to laugh if you see me getting teary-eyed from listening to this John Mayer song or curling up in the comfiest bed on earth, wishing that I could stay here for just a little bit longer.

To my fellow college students currently at home on break: cherish the few and precious moments you have there. Visit old friends and favorite places. Spend more time with your parents; they probably miss you more than you realize. Because now I’m certain that what everyone says is true — four years sure goes by quickly.