There's no place like home right?

When the word "home," comes to mind, we all have that one place we can think back to. No matter where we may be living at for that certain period of time, home is home, and no one can change that.

There comes a time in our lives when it's time to pack up all your stuffed animals and move out of mom and dad's house so you can finally start living on your own. When thinking about moving out, it can be really overwhelming. For most of us, our whole life our parents have been the ones who took care of us and made us dinner and made sure everything was in order. But now, you are on your own with nobody to blame or count on but yourself.

Instead of waiting until the very last minute to move out of your parent's house, an easier way to get into the groove of things ahead of time is by moving away for college. When I say "moving away," that doesn't mean that you have to move to a completely different state. Moving away for college can honestly mean moving twenty-miles away from your house. But hey, at least you moved out.

You learn a lot with living on your own. You are now the boss of everything you choose to do. There is no one there to stop you, which can be a good and bad thing.

Let me just warn you all in advance though, you will soon start to appreciate everything your parents have done for you once you have to start buying, cooking, and cleaning everything yourself. This teaches you what it means to be responsible and take actions into your own hands.

This isn't your parent's place now, it's yours, and that should mean something to you.

When you move away for college and are basically forced to live on your own, it's a good way to start planning for your future. You start to notice things you never took into consideration before, like money. When we were younger, we always wanted the most expensive toy or the best car, but most of us never thought about the toll it would take on our parents when they bought it all for us. We finally realize that everything has a price tag on it, and sometimes it's just not worth it.

The first year you are at college, you most likely will be living in a dorm. The dorms are a great way to get a handle on things, and find your groove for how you want to live. It will be very different living with one or more other people you barely know when you are used to living with four or five other people that you have grown up with your whole life.

It will take time getting used to, but in due time, your roommate can become your best friend. This is their first time living on their own too, so you're both in this together.

There will always be positives and negatives that come with everything we do, especially living on our own for the first time. It's how we put forth our effort in making this work that will help us in the long run. Yes, it will be weird sleeping in a different room, on a different bed that first couple of nights, but this is part of growing up.

We all wish we could keep having our parents buy us our food, and wish we could know we were coming back to a clean house, but now it is our turn to do the grown-up things, even though we will always be a kid at heart.