1:05 -- I'm a college student!

Right now, I am in a wooden cubicle overseeing a student cafe. On my desk lies a lengthy to-do list filled with biology work, readings, applications, and architecture sketches. But still, I am choosing to write a blog.

The night before I started college, I spent three hours crying. I was already homesick without even entering the campus. It was an odd feeling---not the traditional sense of homesickness. While I did miss mama's vegetable soup, my puppies, my alpacas, my room, my candles, and my wall collage of letters, it was another goodbye that terrified me the most: the end of a chapter of my life.

As my mom wiped away tears and said comforting words in the hotel room, I couldn't help but cry at the flashbacks of my life thus far. I will never again truly live with my family again----sure, on visits, but not full-time. I won't be able to stick my head outside the window every day on the way home from school and inhale the nostalgic smell of pine and wind that no words can capture. I will never have another book club day with my friends again. I will never be able to simply go and hug my mom when I have a bad day at school again.

I was terrified because of the ending of it all- the goodbyes to the familiar. I remember I woke up early the morning before I left Colorado. I sat on the bed I've slept in for the last five years and looked at the silver floral wallpaper I've woken up to for the last five years. I touched the Mucha paintings I have seen every day for the last five years. I kissed my dogs' noses for the millionth time, but it felt different. I took extra time with my senior dog. She has been slowing down a lot in the last year, and I whispered to her to stay healthy for me.

I do have a flair for being melodramatic, but leaving everything you know is genuinely a special type of terrifying.

But then, I arrived on campus. And in the midst of the unfamiliar, I found the familiar. I saw Sharon's humor in my roommates' jokes. I felt Luke's philosophy and values in a new friend. I sensed Clara's sweetness in my adoptive roommate. I found Mrs. Cornelio's warmth in Memorial Church's student advisor. I've shared laughter and debates in new settings that remind me dearly of Mrs. Babbitt's room. I've stopped to pet every dog I've encountered to feel the love of my Nori and Hummy. I go to the Rodin garden every other day to watch the squirrels and birds that remind me of my home.

There are, of course, things that simply can't be replicated and things that I miss deeply. My mom. Nothing can ever be like her to me. Our seven calls a day help, though. A deep hug. As a physical-touch love language person, it's been very odd not to be truly embraced for three weeks, but I can only actually hug someone under very specific conditions. My room. I miss my sheets and my wallpaper and having a toilet for myself (I can't talk too much about this or I'll be depressed).

I'm not at home, that's for sure. But I am so grateful to have found places and people that feel like home. I came in anxious that I would be alone. But I have roommates that check in on me when I'm being quiet, friends who stay up late to discuss religion and philosophy, and floormates who watch out for one another at parties. I've opened up about myself to new friends and roommates in ways that I have never done before---I've been more vulnerable to them than I ever have been in high school.

Before starting college, there were times when I doubted whether or not I made the right choice. But now that I'm here, I know for a fact that I did.

cheers,

emma