Home changes a lot for me.
There’s my childhood home — the one where I learned to walk, participated in nightly family dinners and perfected my cartwheel in the backyard.
A few months before my junior year of high school, my family moved out of the neighborhood that I grew up in and a quick 10-minute drive down the road became my new version of home. This is the structure I reference when I tell my friend that I need to stop at home before I go to her house.
The concept of home grows from a specific building to an all-encompassing generalization when discussing it with my college friends. Home is Pennsylvania for me.
I maintained this perspective for much of my freshman year of college, persisting on calling the place where I slept and ate and laughed my “dorm,” not my home.
Because of the uncertainty created by the COVID-19 pandemic, I wasn’t able to consider how the concept of “home” fit into my freshman dorm room — that, and the pure lack of ownership I felt.
Back home, I have my own bed and desk, but in this tiny room that I shared, I knew everything I had would soon be loaned to a new student. And although this is perfectly understandable for the situation, it furthered my dorm from being something I could look to as my home.
Now, sophomore year has welcomed an off-campus apartment that I share with two of my best friends. A lease has cemented the fact that we are staying here for at least 12 months, no matter what unexpected global pandemic may occur next. I have my own room and my own fridge to fill with my own food and cook in my own kitchen.
When calling my mom after my last class of the day, there is a sense of normalcy when telling her I am on my way “home.”
I like to believe clichés are there for a reason. No matter how over-said or cheesy they are deemed to be, it is because the statement rings so true that it is undeniable. And as the cliché goes — home is where the heart is.
Nothing proves the validity of this statement more than my current stance of dual definitions of “home” in my personal dictionary. Definition A: Pennsylvania — my family and friends I’ve known since I was seven, and the undeniable comfortability. Definition B: Boston — adult-like independence with friends that feel like I’ve known since I was seven, and a new kind of familiarity.
Currently, I live in the beautiful limbo of not having to pick just one, a luxury that I know has an expiration date. One day I will graduate college and begin the rest of my life, which will most likely not consist of months of free time that coincides with returning to my hometown as if I permanently live there.
But for now, I live by another eye-roll-inducing cliché — ignorance is bliss!
Both of my homes hold such a comfort and ease that returning is like not missing a beat. I never forget the directions to the grocery store or which aisle the chocolate chips can be found on. My favorite places to run in Boston outlive my absence and are waiting for me to visit them again. Most importantly, my dogs that remain in Pennsylvania never forget that I am, by far, their favorite person every time I return.
My stay in one home is always just long enough to make me miss my favorite takeout meal from the other — but no worries! I always come back.
