Thoughts on Home

“The magic thing about home is that it feels good to leave, and it feels even better to come back.”

(Wendy Wunder)

I’ve been back at Lee for about a month and a half now, and what an exceptional month and a half it’s been. My mind barely stretches far enough to consider the girl I was September of 2018 in contrast with the young woman I am September of now. No doubt working as an RA in Lee’s Residential Life & Housing continues to play an active role in my growth, but I also think this change has something to do with just plain growing up.

And what exactly does growing up entail? What am I growing out of? What am I growing toward? What am I learning to love that I once despised? What ideas and virtues am I challenged with and ready to face?

Perhaps this time last year, I felt the pressure to grow up and grow out– grow out of my comfort zone, my hometown, my timid demeanor, and even at times my faith.

Graduating high school felt like this gigantic leap– a full-throttle force– into adulthood. Oftentimes, I believe it’s easy for young adults to feel as though they must choose between the life they’re “growing out” of and the life they want to “grow into”. Sad, but true. Oh how I wish this wasn’t the case, yet here our generation stands– backed into a corner and told to decide, never looking back.

After about a year-and-a-half wading ankle-deep into adulthood, I’ve begun to see it’s not so black-and-white after all.

And do you want to know what it is I truly desire as a nineteen-year-old young adult– the most pressing wish on my heart at the moment?

More than anything, I just wish I had the option to go to bed early.

To have a home— my home— a real house

with lights and a fireplace and a kitchen table.

To have that home to go to at the end of the day, to have a couch that swallows you in its leather folds as you sigh in pleasant exhaustion after light’s end,

to rest your head against its cushions and close your eyes in sweet sleep.

To mosey into the kitchen and heat up a tea kettle, warming something hot

and comforting to remind you how much you deserve rest.

You deserve to simply be.

You deserve to allow yourself the space to exist, even for a moment, contributing

nothing to the world but your presence.

(Sorry I got a bit lyrical there, it’s all thanks to Dr. Woolfitt and my Intro to Poetry Writing class.)

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I’ve been mulling over this idea of home the past few weeks. My homesickness is worse than it was this time last year, and I’m not completely sure why. Perhaps it is the perpetual give-and-take of being an overworked college student/human being, or perhaps it is simply because I can feel to my very core the growing pains associated with becoming an adult.

I can feel it— it gnaws at my side, pulls at my shirttail, beckons me like a single lamppost on a cloudy night.

I braced myself for the change that sophomore year of college might bring– the shifting friend dynamics, on-call weekends, intensive classes, and the uneasiness associated with finding a general direction to set sail on this serious course of life.

However, I did not expect to feel rushes of loneliness that came without warning. Curling up on the tiny couch crammed in my dorm room. Arising from a Sunday nap. Conversing on the phone with my father. Reading the Odyssey for my lit class. There was a tangible sort of absence– I could feel it. 

I’ve found a misconception floating about the college/young adult realm that “adults” don’t get homesick often, if at all. I am someone who bought that misconception last year as a freshman– I viewed the sophomores, juniors, and seniors as being so fiercely independent and having their lives together, and that’s why they didn’t seem to go home regularly.

A whole year later, I laugh at my youthful self. Hilarious. 

Everyone deserves a place to go back to. Sometimes that place looks like a house. Sometimes that place looks like a person. Whatever it is to you, it’s home.

I believe growing up is precisely why I find myself longing for home more and more. I’ve acknowledged my fleeting youth, like a flame flickering on a blustery day. And while that might sound chilling to the bone, it doesn’t mean the end of freedom. Our culture berates the very concept of aging, both physically and mentally, as if it is something to avoid at all costs.

But I wonder what they might say about emotional age– the wisdom we gain from broken hearts and the vulnerability we learn from conversing with others? Or what about spiritual age– the footing we grip from diving deeper in our attempts to understand the mysterious God?

There is beauty is growing older. There are opportunities awaiting you on the other side of adolescence– I promise.

Allow me the liberty to share with you a few of my “growing up” experiences from the past few months:

• Future: About a week into classes this semester, I decided to narrow down my communications major to focus on nonprofit advertising. I couldn’t seem to escape this idea, so therefore I’m taking a leap of faith and going for it. My heart jumps at the potential places I might live and possibilities that are already presenting themselves. Picturing myself functioning in a career that not only pays the bills (at the least) but also fills my soul gives me remarkable joy.
• Balancing: Social pressures abound freshman year of college– making friends, finding your people, figuring out your classes, adjusting to living unsupervised, etc. Transitioning out of my freshman stage of life to sophomore year as an RA required a complete shift in my pre-established routine. It’s been a balancing act, to say the least. As an RA, I sometimes feel as though I’m facilitating an Intro to Independent Living class– except, I’m a professor and TA all-in-one. I am still a novice in the art of adulthood, but it’s unique to be someone who helps others learn the things I am still learning myself. Most days, I don’t have my crap together– but it’s okay because there is grace in the growing process and no one expects perfection of me. It’s all too easy to neglect my own health in the process of caring for others, but enforcing good habits has forced me to start creating a few of my own. I can say no to others and say yes to myself sometimes, I can approach hard conversations without backing down, I can spend hours at the library studying because it matters to my future, and I can take the trash out when it’s full.
• Relationships: The Lord spent the entire summer teaching me about marriage. It’s tempting to become swept up in the excitement of dating in college, and as much as I tried to convince myself I was ready for a serious relationship last year, I just wasn’t. This summer, I began to understand the covenant of marriage– from the first marriage between Adam and Eve, why it exists, why God takes it so seriously, and what a solid marriage should look like. Marriage carries weight far past this earth; it the biggest decision you will ever make aside from your relationship with God. It is so important that we choose our spouses wisely, thoughtfully, and prayerfully. Circling back to dating in college, I’m finally seeing just how necessary it is to strike a balance between actively pursuing our passions and remaining hopefully expectant in God’s ability to move in our love stories when He knows we’re ready.
• Settling: Lately I’ve developed more of an interest in collecting art, learning to cook, cleaning, and making the small dimensions of my dorm room look presentable for guests. These are things my mother tried to engage me in as a teenager, but naturally I resisted. None of those things seemed all that exciting to a fifteen-year-old. But now? You can catch me pinning color palettes and DIY kitchen cabinets to my “dream home” Pinterest board any and all days.

Though I still use plastic sporks to eat my microwave dinners and I can’t help but stay awake until 1 am most nights, I am becoming an adult. It is a process, and one that is certainly not linear.

How strange it is– the ascent into adulthood. It is a rollercoaster, but the beginning of the ride– a slow, uphill incline that trucks forward while the anticipation continues to build with each passing second. We want to reach the top, but fear bubbles beneath the surface. We long to grow old but desperately cling to the days of our youth.

I carry an expanding list of things I do not understand about myself, other people, life, my future, and God. But one thing I do know is that it’s okay to be homesick–

no matter if you’re eighteen or eighty.