Being back home sounds great as you’re zipping up your suitcase in your little shoebox dorm room, excited about seeing your old friends and sleeping in your old bed again. But then you get home and after all the hugs, dinners and family gatherings, you start to realize that maybe…just maybe, being home for a month isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Yes, you get to see all those old friends who decided to work after high school or the ones that also returned for the holidays from their college of choice, and maybe you’ll even drop by your old high school to see how those younger friends are doing. You get to watch TV in your own home, eat from your own fridge, and even take a few days to bum around with your dog because you can. You’re thankful for not having to go to any 8AM’s and not having to write those tedious discussion posts, but after a while, you start to feel something. Boredom, maybe?

Sure, you can work over the holiday season, but you’ll still return to the same home and maybe after a while your bed doesn’t feel as comfortable and maybe bumming around the house starts to seem dull. You start to miss your campus, you start to miss being able to go down the hallway to hang out with your friends, you start to miss that little shoebox dorm room with all your photos, you start to miss your resident hall as a whole, and the freedom to go anywhere and do anything with the people that have become your closest friends because you know you just can.

Yes, you call and text and even send then a snap or two, but it’s just not the same. The distance starts to get to you and you start itching to get back to campus, back to your dorm, and just back to the place where you thrived as a person, where you made a name for yourself, where your life seems to be now.

Personally, I love being home with my family, with loved ones, free food, and a comfy bed and a familiarity of the streets. But, I’m also so ready to go back to my campus, to go back to my friends, and the natural flow of what’s become my student life. And I know I’m not the only one. Right?