Leaving One Home for Another

Home is crafted out of construction paper and Christmas lights. 

Sometimes, it's made out of necessity. Going into this school year, my college roommate and I were determined to make our room "homey." Freshman year, we both missed the comfort of going home to someone we could talk to at the end of the day. We wanted our room this year to be cozy and warm. We've filled our room with crafts and notes and it's a place that we both enjoy hanging out in. 

Home is in Starbucks, when I'm sitting next to my best friend.

If I were to go to this same Starbucks without my friend Liv, it wouldn't feel like home to me. But on this day, it did, because we hadn't seen each other in months and she was heading off to Ireland for the spring semester. Home was unpacked and repacked in 45 minutes.

Home is Nauset Beach, with the ocean dissolving the snow like cappuccino foam.

This home was formed over four summers of working, living, and swimming in Cape Cod. I gained my independence here. Its salt water buoyed me through the summer before my freshman year of college. It's the water I bottled up and took with me to my dorm room. It's the home that helped me find new homes. 

I think part of growing up is not just about leaving home, but finding new ones. These past few weeks have made me think a lot about the concept of home. I was "home" in the house I grew up in, with my family and childhood friends. I'm home in Cape Cod now, with my co-workers from the summer and the beach. I leave to go back to Denison University later this week. All of these are home for different reasons. My childhood home offers the comfort of high school friends, my cat, and homemade cooking. Cape Cod has salt air, open skies, and fresh mussels. Denison is stimulating with its lectures, theater productions, and class discussions. All of these homes offer a loving and supportive community.

The more I travel between these three homes, the less disruptive it is every time. I can appreciate what each home has to offer. Like I was excited to come home to Massachusetts and rest for the holidays, I'm equally excited to go back to Denison and start my classes and rehearsals for our winter musical, Sweeney Todd. I'm grateful to now have a community at Denison that I miss and look forward to seeing. I'm leaving one home and going to another, and I feel so blessed to be able to say that.