College is a huge transition period for everyone, but being an upperclassmen means a lot of different things. It means in the past couple of years you’ve spent more time at your university than you have at your childhood home, it means soon enough you’re expected to live on your own and work full time to support yourself, which is incredibly daunting for most people. This short narrative explains how this can be overwhelming, and how everything will turn out just fine.

“Sometimes you’re 23 and standing in the kitchen of your house making breakfast and brewing coffee and listening to music that for some reason is really getting to your heart. You’re just standing there thinking about going to work and picking up your dry cleaning. And also more exciting things like books you’re reading and trips you plan on taking and relationships that are springing into existence. Or fading from your memory, which is far less exciting. And suddenly you just don’t feel at home in your skin or in your house and you just want home but ‘Mom’s’ probably wouldn’t feel like home anymore either. There used to be the comfort of a number in your phone and ears that listened everyday and arms that were never for anyone else. But just to calm you down when you started feeling trapped in a five-minute period where nostalgia is too much and thoughts of this person you are feel foreign. When you realize that you’ll never be this young again but this is the first time you’ve ever been this old. When you can’t remember how you got from sixteen to here and all the same feel like sixteen is just as much of a stranger to you now. The song is over. The coffee’s done. You’re going to breathe in and out. In about five minutes you’re going to be just fine.”

-Kayln RoseAnne

These feelings of overwhelming nostalgia are normal and being scared of how quickly time seems to be moving is scary. It doesn’t mean we have to let it control our lives. Your mom will always be there for you, her arms will always be there to hold you, and her ears will always be listening, even if it’s through the phone. Your childhood house may not be your “home” anymore, but it will still have the same smell, the same rooms, the same memories, all of which are just as much home as the structure it’s self. Don’t let the fact that you’ve made a life for yourself scare you, and don’t let the fact that you’ll never be this young again scare you. You’ll never be this young which means you’ll never be this naive again. Be happy you aren’t sixteen again dealing with acne, and high school, and first learning how to use a straightening and eyeliner. It’s normal to be scared or overwhelmed but take a second to realize how not as much has changed as you think.