A Reflection on Visiting Home

By Sami Dugdale
Blog Content Contributor

I recently visited home for the first time in three months. I live about four hours away, so going home every weekend isn’t really an option for me like it is for a lot of my friends. I got really homesick as soon as I moved to Texas State and I knew that it would be a long time before I would see my friends and family again.

After one long train ride, my mom picked me up from the station and we had lunch with my sister. I spent the day with my family and even got see my grandparents (one of the biggest perks of going home after so long is that all of your relatives want to give you money).

Later that night and the next day I got to see some of my friends from high school who were also home for the weekend. We tried to catch each other up with what had been going on in our lives, school, friends, etc., but we had such a short time together that we barely made a dent.

Going home made me realize a lot of things. First, I missed my cat a lot more than I thought I did. Second, once you go home, it’s very hard to leave. Seeing all of my friends and family again made it feel like I was back in high school when my life was so simple and I just got to enjoy being a teenager. I know that sounds cliché, but my life in high school really was so simple. I would go to school, hang out with my friends, work, see my family and that was it. Tearing yourself away from something like that is a difficult thing to do. However, we leave because we know that it’s the right thing to do.

Third, it wasn’t until I was around my family and high school friends that I realized how much I’ve changed. It’s not just that new “adult” attitude, it’s a combination of things that we could all just feel was different in each other. Even parents can feel this change. I had no curfew like I did in high school, and there was no asking where I was going or when I would be back, which was really weird.

Finally, going home forced me to realize that home isn’t really “home” anymore. I saw a tweet a couple weeks ago that accurately summed up what I was feeling. It read, “In college, it’s like you’re homeless, because when you’re at school it doesn’t feel like you’re at home, but your old home isn’t home anymore”. I definitely felt homeless when I came back to school. It’s an odd feeling, and I know that I can’t be the only one who feels this way. All we can do is try to make the best of our situation and try to find a home wherever we go.

I didn’t think that visiting home would be such a confusing time for me, but I’m glad I went. I believe that these are things that everyone feels after being gone from somewhere close to their heart for such a long time and hopefully, over time, I will be able to work through them just like everyone else has to at some point in their life.

Featured image by Sami Dugdale.