I'm a freshman, starting me second semester in college in two days. I call school "home", but I also call my parent's house "home." I really call anywhere I am "home" because, without a home within myself, I don't think I would have survived the past few months. In August, my parents moved, from Birmingham, AL, the only place I'd ever known to South Florida.
We packed the essentials from the city I'd known as home since I was born, drugged the cats (with the vets permission, of course) and drove 11 whole hours to a new place I'd never been before. I'll have you know that South Florida is entirely different from Alabama and even Northern Florida where my grandparents live. It was complete culture shock, I was no longer in the "south" where football and sweet tea reigned supreme. I was in a place where they liked professional football and wore shorts and flip flops year round (not that people don't do that in Alabama, but it was a different experience to be sure).
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It was also horse country and it wasn't odd to see someone cruising down the street in a Rolls Royce. This was a far cry from the crowd I was used to, as well as the shift in accent, from y'all to youse guys. My accent is not as strong as parents but every where we went we got asked where we were from (not Texas, not all southerners are from Texas).
We were in temporary housing, and I slept on the couch for a week, awoken by my father, who had to get up early in order to complete his long commute. I understood why we had moved (my dad needed a job), but I was still angry and upset that my parents couldn't have done it earlier, in July, or later in the month, so I could spend my last days before school in my hometown. Instead I spent them on the couch, in an unknown place, surrounded by unknown things.
Then I came North, back to the south (as contradictory as that seems). My therapist had told me before all this happened that it was going to be difficult, to find a home again and she was right. Within my first moth at school I had a number of breakdowns. One on Freshman retreat (now affectionally known as the weekend of hell). I had a panic attack in the rain, I realize now that it wasn't about the knee surgery I'd had, but rather about the fact it was the longest I'd ever been away from the physical place I called home. My knee was fine, but emotionally I wasn't.
Then after that excursion we came back to campus and my mother came into town, only making things worse. Sure it was nice to have her here to help me get things sorted, but it only made my homesickness worse (my advice, unless you live close enough to go home on weekends, don't have your parents come into town within your first month of being in school).
I had a major panic attack that almost caused me to drop out of school, without it even officially starting as I was still going through orientation. After I got my bearings from that episode and my mom left, I had one or two more majors cries, one in the middle of a Target and I apologize to the employees for placing all my purchases from every different department in the makeup aisle, but I had to get out of there.
From that point I was fine. I resigned myself to making my school and North Carolina my home. Luckily I chose the best place possible for that. Catawba College with it's faculty and students has made my life infinitely better. In my phone now, all I have to say is "directions home" and my GPS takes me to Catawba. I did this on purpose, because I knew the more I called Catawba home, the more of a home it would become to me.
Recently I went to my parents new home in south Florida, a more permanent home and slept in my own bed for the first time since July. I realized that this place was home as well. That I could have two homes. One, with my school family in NC and one with my biological family in FL. I also realized how tough I had become. Hardened by moving (TWICE!), and finals, and being surrounded by lots of strangers.
I used to look up to people in college because they had this air of confidence about them, and now I felt that fire burning within myself. Being at home makes you feel kind of like you're a kid again, and so I went back to my indecisive habits, but now that I'm back in my element in North Carolina I feel that fire burning bright again. I feel that fire deep within my bones as it is the warmth of a home I have created for myself and within myself.
Sure, my social anxiety still prevents me from going to loud crowded places, and my depression causes me to struggle with getting out of bed some weekends. Now I know that I have the power within myself to put myself in more uncomfortable social situation, and to force myself out of bed on those days when depression has it's dark grip on me.
I am more joyful than I have ever been before, I have more true friends than I ever have, and I feel in a better place mentally and physically than I have all the way through high school. I will forever call Alabama home, and I hope to return soon, but I also know that I can call wherever I am home as well.
I may shed a tear when I hear "Sweet Home Alabama" and I may still feel a dull ache in my heart whenever a good football game is on, but the state isn't going anywhere, and I know it will be there waiting when I return as will my home in NC and my home in FL but I can't wait to see where home will be next, a new State? Country? Continent? I now know that I am strong enough to handle whatever life throws at me and I look forward to the ride.
