Articles of the Month

Home is where the Heart is

With Christmas Break quickly approaching, I am left pondering how far I have come as an adult.

I see Christmas as a chance to meet up with old friends that perhaps I haven't seen during the whole year. I have really grown up through my years in university and I will always remember my first year.

Heading off to university was a brand new experience. It was a wonderful, yet, a frightening time. I know when I was about to go to college that first year, I was terrified, but excited. It was something new; I had never been away from home by myself.

I wouldn't be surrounded by the familiar streets and faces I had grown up with. I was about to enter "The Adult World"; making my own decisions and actually having to deal with the consequences.

I was leaving behind my own little room to live in a tiny room with a stranger, who I had only talked to a few times. The mere thought of living with someone who I had never met in person terrified me; all the stereotypical horrible roommate scenarios came to my head. I was picturing everyone from the twin sister of chainsaw killing Jason to a kleptomaniac who would pawn the whole room's contents while I slept.

My other major fear was that I would not meet a single person. Thus, I would be friendless for the entire year, as none of my friends were going off to St. Thomas University with me. Luckily for me, my cousin and some friends had been past students of the college, and having lived on residence, were able to reassure me that things would not be that bad. Of course, they were right.

I met my roommate, Heather, when I arrived at the residence; she was normal and someone who I could hang around with. As the year went on, we got along well, having a few little disagreements, but when you live in a room about the size of a prison cell, you are bound to run into problems.

My second fear was unfounded, too. Although I did spend a lot of time wandering around the campus trying to figure out which building was which, one day in a lunch line I met Tracy, who became one of my best friends. Effortlessly, I had met two people who made the first bit of school more bearable. Later, I met many other people.

Although school had seemed less frightening, I was counting down the days until I would be able to come home for a couple weeks for the Christmas Break. The three weeks at home sounded wonderful, as I was homesick. I was tempted to just stay at home and be a Christmas graduate. I fought through those feelings and made it to what is now my fourth year.

Every year that passes now, I find it harder to leave the place that I now call home and go back to my hometown. Although nothing beats homemade cooking, from the turkey with all the fixings to homemade apple pie, and the sounds of a house filled with family and friends. My new home may be somewhere else, but my heart will always be in my hometown.

Although you become used to living in another place and may even call it home, there is nothing like going home for the holidays and being surrounded by people that you love.