Going Home // Gone to Carolina
Originally posted November 15, 2015.
Last weekend I went to a little town on a hill. In that little town, there are light blue street signs and light blue fire-trucks and shops lined with light blue clothing on a street called Franklin. There’s a flagship university, a renowned athletic system, and the best people I’ve ever known.
Like many others going to homecoming, I made my pilgrimage to the University of North Carolina with a full heart and a quickened pulse. As soon as my plane landed at RDU, my shoulders relaxed. My spirits soared. My hands tingled with the anticipation of coming home. I ran off my plane, found my friend, and together we made the familiar 30-minute drive to that blessed place called Chapel Hill.
My weekend in Blue Heaven was a blur of laughter, joy, good friends, and favorite bars. I visited my sorority house, gleefully and unashamedly met the newest addition to my Pi Phi family, and slept on the floor with ten of my closest friends in a basement apartment. I made new memories in an old place and everything felt right.
While I have always known the feeling of home within my family, I did not have a place that was mine until Chapel Hill. As an Army kid, I moved frequently. Every two years, I packed up my belongings, said my goodbyes, and moved to a different place with a different school and different people. For the most part I enjoyed each town, but I always knew I was not there to stay and that I was a fluid component of my friend groups. When it was time for college, I was ready for more. I was ready for a place where I felt loved, challenged, happy, safe, permanent. A place where I could leave and return years later and still feel that I belonged to it and it to me.
Chapel Hill gave me all of that and more, but it also taught me a crucial lesson. As much as I love the sight of the light blue street signs and the Old Well; as much as I miss the chiming of the Bell Tower and the roar of a crowd in the Dean Dome; and as much as I enjoy walking those brick pathways throughout campus, it is not just the place that is home — it’s the people.
The people are what make the memories that much more colorful and lively and pure. The people are what made tripping over the old bricks funny and staying up all night studying bearable and waiting for a basketball game in the snow an adventure. The people are what make me laugh until my cheeks hurt. It is the people that encourage me to be the best version of myself and love me when I’m not. It is the people that understand how I feel about this place, and it is that understanding that makes me feel at home.
The games won, the excited hellos and disappointed goodbyes said, and the elation of the weekend fading, the last of us made our way to RDU. Five of us went to the airport to catch flights to Houston, New York, Atlanta, and DC. The sadness of leaving didn’t hit me until I said my final goodbye, and I realized my brief visit to a different life was over. Seeing all of us run to opposite gates leading to different places brought our current reality into screaming color. It hurt, and I blinked back the tears as the wheels of my plane parted with the ground.
The next day my texts and social media were full of Tar Heels lamenting not being able to go to homecoming, or being sad that the weekend was over and real life had to be faced once more. Much of this past week has involved missing my favorite town, watching UNC games, and wondering when I can next visit the people I either didn’t see or didn’t see enough of at homecoming. Mostly my week has involved living my life as it is currently — going to work, working out, being with friends. But there were days when the sky was the perfect shade of light blue, and my heart skipped a beat.
