Over the past couple weeks, I have had a number of conversations with a number of people about something that seems to be on the mind of college students everywhere: when is it okay to branch out from your hometown and start putting down roots somewhere else?

We move away to school and live in a different area, but we still return home for Christmas and summer. This process makes freshman year feel as if the whole college experience is just an extended trip. And then semesters pass and internships, relationships and rent come, making us realize that our trips back to our hometown are just that – trips.

All of a sudden we come to the fact that we have truly moved away.

Traditional wisdom says we move away when we pack up our stuff in a friend’s truck and drive ten hours up I-5. But some part of us stays. It’s just a vacation; it makes sense why the first part of freshman year feels like a big sleepover. However, eventually something changes.

I’m a sophomore, and I think I’m starting to realize I moved away very recently. I’m starting to realize that moving away isn’t a physical process as much as it is a complex mental transition from the home to Elsewhere.

I’m not sure if I’m really comfortable with Elsewhere yet… the food isn’t as good, the towels are never dry and it’s a lot more stressful. But I’m here right now and the words of Walt Whitman ring true:

What is commonest, cheapest, nearest, easiest, is Me,
Me going in for my chances, spending for vast returns,
Adorning myself to bestow myself on the first that will take me,
Not asking the sky to come down to my good will,
Scattering it freely forever.

I am here – Elsewhere.