As Thanksgiving is oh so slowly approaching, and I am finishing up projects and assignments while making travel arrangements, I think about how different it feels now than it did in my freshman year. I came to a college where I knew no one, I left everyone I knew and loved and I was scared. I was so homesick and always wanted to go home. When I got to go home I was so excited, that the 3 hour trip home felt like it took a whole lifetime. I would plan every second that I was home, making sure I was spending my time with everyone and not wasting any of it. I would dread heading back to school. I had my friends that I loved, but they weren’t my friends from home. I would often think about how I had made a mistake going to college so far away from home.
Now it is the complete opposite. My life at school is amazing, and it is like my home. Heading back to my house during breaks, or even on a random weekend, seems like a chore. I dread it and count the hours until I can come back to school. When it comes time for me to go back to Missouri, I look forward to the idea of real food, not having to go to class or do homework, and to seeing my nephew who I am only mildly obsessed with, I promise. I miss my friends, and the friends at home just aren’t the same. As I am getting closer to the end of my college career—only 3 semesters left—I think of how much I am going to miss it here, and how much I was affected by the people here, and how many wonderful people and things I have met and been a part of. And I can only hope that, the next place in my life will be half as amazing as I have learned that this place is.
Remember, some of the most amazing things in your life can be from people and places you don’t expect, so keep an open mind and open heart, for you might find home is exactly where you are, not where you have been.