This weekend, I’m going home for the first time in 12 weeks. Twelve weeks! It’s the longest amount of time I’ve ever spent away from home, but I’m somehow OK with that.

My freshman year was a much different story. I always found excuses to go home, often visiting once or twice a month. There, I found a much-needed reprieve from cafeteria food and essays and public showers.

For years, I’ve tried to find a word to describe what it’s like to visit home for the weekend, and I’ve often settled on bittersweet. But lately, that just doesn’t seem to cut it. When you’re a college student, those two days away from school can be an amazing getaway, but they can also be a poignant reminder of a life you’ve had to leave behind.

So instead of choosing a word, I’ve chosen moments. Together, they make up what it feels like to visit home.

You wake up in the morning and feel a rush of relief as you realize you’re in your own bed. After not having to hit snooze (because you didn’t need an alarm for once), you sit on the couch to watch the morning news and eat your mom’s best chocolate chip waffles, and you feel like a weight has been lifted off your chest. You are full, in both a literal and figurative sense. It’s like you never left. But finally home, you’ve never felt more homesick.

You realize that that you only get a few days with your family before you have to pick up and leave again. Their lives will continue without you, and yours without them. Of course you already knew this, but being back home makes it tangible, more concrete. It gives you a certain solace, knowing  – or at least convincing yourself – that you’ve finally reached adulthood and can take care of yourself, but the feeling is fleeting. And that’s OK, too.

“You feel your internal sense of ‘home’ slowly relocating, and you wonder if it’s possible to have more than one. You eventually realize that you can.”

You bump into an old friend at the grocery store, but you find little to talk about at first. You realize that you’ve chosen different paths, and you may not have been as similar as you once thought. But you decide to hang out and end up spending hours laughing about old memories and comforting each other with the shared knowledge of your pasts, something you haven’t experienced since moving away.

Even though you’re happy to be home, you find yourself missing Eau Claire, a conflicting feeling that only intensifies over the years. You miss your roommates, your friends, and even the river. You feel your internal sense of “home” slowly relocating, and you wonder if it’s possible to have more than one. You eventually realize that you can.

You tell your mom your plans for the weekend so she knows where you’re going to be. It feels out of place to have to check in with your parents like this. You wonder if it frustrates them that they don’t know what you’re doing when you’re away at college, if they have the urge to check in with you and ask you where you are all the time even when you’re 200 miles away. You decide you’d rather not know.

You stay up until 1 o’clock in the morning talking to your mom, catching up on all of the things you’ve missed out on in each other’s lives since the last time you saw each other. She listens to all your stories and always wants to know more about how you’ve been. You begin to understand how much she’s done for you, and you decide that you really do want to be just like her. You wish you called her more.

You spend time with your little sister and realize she’s her own person, growing up without you. You find that you’re becoming more and more similar to each other, but neither of you will admit it – one of your shared qualities is stubborn individualism. You wish you called her more.

Every once in a while, you’ll see your brother, also visiting from college. You swap horror stories about midterm papers and college houses and weekends gone awry. You wonder why you didn’t get along this well when you both lived at home. You wish you called him more.

You talk to your dad over dinner and a movie at home. In between bites, he tells you about how his work has been and asks you if you’re keeping up your grades at school. Your conversations are short, but very meaningful to you. You know he hasn’t yet accepted that you’ve moved away, but you also know he’ll never show it; you’re reminded of where you and your siblings got you and your stubbornness. You wish you called him more.

The weekend goes quickly, and before you know it, it’s time to pack up what few belongings you brought with you and make the trek back to Eau Claire. You stand in front of your childhood home and think about the history you’ve had there. For an instant, you genuinely feel the weight of the fact that you’ll never live there again.

But as you drive away, you can feel the light of the new life that lies ahead of you.
Your family will always be there for you. You may not see them as often anymore, and your relationship with them will undoubtedly change. While you know that this is a natural part of growing up, it doesn’t make it any easier. But you wouldn’t trade it for anything.

You can’t wait to go back.