As my first summer home from school is starting to end and I am preparing myself to head back in a few weeks people are asking me if I am ready to go back yet. If I am being honest, I am not that sure. A more complicated answer, that most people probably would not understand, would be yes I am ready to go back to school, but I am not ready to leave home again.

As my freshmen was ending I was very excited to come home and be able to just relax and see my friends and family yet again. During previous summers, I was barely home. I was constantly going from one trip to the next and doing everything I possibly could. There were late nights with friends and slow mornings with pancakes. This summer on the other was different from my high school summers. Not a bad different; just different, and I was not prepared for such a change.

This summer I am working. I am a nanny and I truly do love it. I love the kids like they are my own family; leaving them to go back is going to be one of my hardest goodbyes if not the hardest (don't tell momma). However, during my previous summers I never had a job; I never had time for one. Setting an alarm during the summer is not that strange to me thanks to choir tours and kids camp, but somehow this is just different.

While I have been on summer break since the end of April, I am not totally sure when it actually started to feel like summer. I got out while my friends were still in school; I did not know what to do with myself. And then once everyone was out I started working. While I was still able to relax and be around children and play with them in the pool, I never had this feeling of it is finally summertime like i usually do.

One of the hardest things about coming home this summer, that I was not prepared for at all, was realizing that things were just not as you left them. I almost had to readjust to life at home because I had got so use to life at school and people back home got use to not seeing me. Some people I was able to reconnect with immediately and it was like nothing had changed. I have new friends from school that live near Richmond I hang with, and I even had made new friends just from being home this summer. However, in some cases the distance was just too much and connections have been lost. Yes it sucks and it still hurts me sometimes, but I have learned that the people who are suppose to be in my life will stay there and the ones that aren't will not.

I also have had great times with my family and friends this summer. They may not be the late nights I remember because I have become a grandma and go to bed around 10:30, and I may not get to sit around all morning, but I still have special moments that make me wanna stay. While the idea of going back to school and having a ton of homework sounds awful, that's honestly not even one of my biggest issues with going back to school; it's leaving behind my loved ones again with the fear that I could lose my connection with them.

I feel like this summer has gone by in a blink of an eye. Being home has been great, but I am ready to see my friends and I am ready to make new friends and continue the college experience and make the most of it. Still, packing up and leaving my family is going to be hard, when will it not be? This summer may have been different and not what I was expecting at all, but that does not mean I am dying to get out of here and go back to CNU. Besides, I still have a few more weeks to make the best of my summer. CNU has become my home away from home; home is where I love to be, but now I have two. So when I tell you I am ready to go back, that does not necessarily mean I am ready to leave. I am just leaving one home and going another.