I’ve always been the type of person who is very attached to places. I’m
not entirely sure why, but maybe I’ll figure that out as I write this.
Whenever I travel somewhere, I get pretty homesick for the first night
or two. This has gotten less intense as I’ve gotten older and traveled more,
but some small part of me always feels a tug toward home. As someone with
anxiety, I thrive on familiarity, so when I take myself out of my familiar
environment, I feel uncomfortable and stressed. But after a couple of days in a
new place, I grow more comfortable and familiar and that anxious feeling fades
until, eventually, I barely even think about home.
This especially true with Austin, Texas. I have been there twice now. The
first time I went there, I cried on the first night because I was stressed
trying to find my way around town, and I cried on my last night because I didn’t
want to leave. After a few days there, it felt like home to me. It was even
harder to leave the second time I visited, especially since I was leaving my new friends behind. I missed the adventure. I missed hugging my internet friends every time we saw each other. I missed being surrounded by thousands of people who liked the same things as me.
But this isn’t just true with travel, of course. Just before I moved
out of my house and into the dorms at UNO, I found myself going through all of
the “lasts.” Last time waking up in my childhood bedroom. Last shower in my
bathroom. Last meal. Now that I think about it, this was silly because the
dorms were just temporary, but I didn’t know that at the time. When I was all
moved in, I couldn’t sleep for the first couple of nights. That was the first
time I had ever been away from home for more than just a vacation. I refrained
from calling it home because it didn’t feel like it was. But eventually, I
began to say, “my parents’ house” instead of “my house.” And when I moved out
of the dorms and back home, I couldn’t sleep the first night because I felt
homesick for my dorm. Even though it was temporary, it had become my home for
the two years I was there. I missed 2am conversations and spontaneous dance parties with Rachel. I missed having a place where my friends and I could be independent. I experienced so many monumental life changes there,
just as I had in my childhood home.
Now, I am all moved into my first apartment. While I felt sad and
nostalgic during the weeks leading up to moving day, I didn’t cry, for whatever
strange reason. I guess because it didn’t feel real to me. It wasn’t until my
first night in my new place when it hit me. I cried a little bit, talked to
friends, did some writing, and listened to music, trying to calm myself down. I
missed my house. I missed my dog. I missed my brief, late night kitchen
conversations with my brother while we both got snacks. I missed sitting on the
back patio in the evenings, reading a book while the sun went down. I missed commentating on tacky HGTV shows with Mom while we shared mac and cheese. I missed
everything that made a house a home.
But the next day, I unpacked more boxes and set up my room to my
liking, and I began to feel a bit more comfortable in this unfamiliar place. And
as I sit here writing this, I think I get it now. It’s not about where you are;
it’s about who you are and who you’re with. I believe that I could stay
anywhere in the world for a few days and be able to call it home, as long as I
had myself and my friends and family close by or a phone call away. I wouldn’t
be able to do life without them.
I’ll always refer to my parents’ house and Nebraska in general as home,
but I’m starting to realize that home is not determined by a physical place. It’s
wherever you make it and wherever you feel safe and loved by the people you care about.
