Going Home...Again

Who says you can't go back? I've been all around the world and as a matter of fact, there's only only place left I want to go. Who says you can't go home?


Well, me. That's who, Bon Jovi. I say you can't go home. Or at least I can't. In three days, I'm going home. I'm walking straight back into my old life. I'll have to move back in with my parents. I'll have to abide by their rules. I'll have to clean the pool. I'll have to babysit. It's not exactly what I've been used to.

The last nine months of my life have been incredible. I grew up faster than I ever could have imagined. I've lived by myself, financed my life, and let go of everything I have ever known. As I turn nineteen and complete my freshman year, I can actually say I feel like an adult, or like I am slowly becoming one.

In high school, I was weird. Not in a negative, "I-eat-lunch-by-myself-because-I-have-no-friends" kind of way. I was just a little loud, and a lot crazy. The funny thing about college is that everyone is crazy.

My ideas of spontaneous road trips and cartwheels at midnight became realities in college. I found people who went along with my silly ideas and loved them. I used to think that I needed people in my life to bring me back to Earth, but really, I needed people in my life to show me that there was a whole universe out there.

Life is constantly moving, constantly changing, and you have to be willing to move with it, or you won't ever leave. You won't ever gravitate if you won't get your feet off the ground.

Another thing I've learned this year is that home doesn't have to be your hometown. It doesn't have to be your biological family. Heck, it doesn't even have to be the same place forever. Honestly, I'm having the hardest time accepting the fact that I will be away from this life for three months. I hate that everything I've worked so hard for won't exist for an entire summer.

The beauty of this mentality, though, is that you can't be drug down by anything or anyone. When you realize that everything is temporary, everything is futile, you are finally free. People and places won't be in your life forever, and that's okay.

I've spent a lot of time in my life crying over what could have been, whether it be a boy, a best friend, or even a dream school. The crazy thing is, though, that I'm okay.

I'm okay without the people I thought I needed. I'm okay at a school that I thought I'd never go to. I'm okay knowing that my life doesn't have to be perfect. I'm okay knowing that I'll do better next time. I'm okay trusting that God's plan is so much greater than mine.

Knowing that I'm okay on my own makes it so hard to go home. It makes it so hard to be still. It makes it so hard to stop moving forward.

Don't get me wrong-- I love my family. They're amazing people. They love me, but they've loved me from a distance for almost a year and I've survived. However, the people I've lived with the past year? How can I be away from them for three months?

The most freeing and depressing realization, though, is that there is not one thing or person in our lives that we can live without.

Like Jewel said, "If I could tell the world just one thing, it'd be 'you're all okay.'"