I lived in West Haven, Connecticut for 18 years of my life.

August 3rd, 2016 I moved to Lakeland, Florida with my parents, leaving everything I knew behind.

It wasn't a secret that I wanted to get out of Connecticut, I had such a hard time in my high school that I just wanted to leave. Going to college in Connecticut wasn't even a thought to me, I just couldn't do it anymore. Living there wasn't an option for my parents, they needed to move, Florida is so much cheaper than living in Connecticut.

Leaving was so emotional, the last two weeks I was there I was a wreck, as were my friends. There was so much crying on the day I got on my one-way flight to Florida, I cried basically until I got to the airport. I had cried for 3 days with my boyfriend and cried for hours with my best friend. I couldn't believe I was leaving them.

Once I was on the plane I felt a lot better, I missed my parents (who had moved there a few days before I had). Getting used to my new house was weird but it felt familiar at the same time, I was meant to be there. I was fine for awhile, I had a lot of things to distract myself with all the unpacking I was doing. But as I finished my unpacking, I began to feel lonely. I was just with my parents, I only had one friend in Florida and our schedule didn't match up and she was over an hour away. The good thing was all my friends in Connecticut hadn't started school yet either so I could talk to them whenever I wanted.

My first week or so of college was great, I was busy all the time and always surrounded by people. As time has gone on and the newness has worn off my anxiety has started to get worse. I started to doubt all the decisions I had made, maybe I shouldn't be in Florida. Maybe I should go to school in Connecticut, my parents would still be here so I could come here to visit them. I missed all of my friends so much, as I watched their Snapchat stories of them going home and I hated that I wasn't with them. Seeing all my friends together at a place we use to go all the time made me so upset and I wanted to scream, I wanted to be with them so badly.

After talking to my best friend about it, she brought me back to reality and brought up a great point. "You were here for 18 years. You haven't even been there for 3 months, give it sometime OK? It's understandable to miss it". The more I thought about it, the more it made sense, and it didn't just apply to me missing Connecticut, I related to so many other things in my life.

Being so far away is so different for me, as it usually is to people. Anything that's new starts out with it all being sparkly and new and slowly that starts to fade to normal and you miss what you know. In my situation, I will always miss things about the state I grew up in and the friends I made there but I know that Florida is where I need to be right now.

Maybe one day I'll be back in New England, but for now, I'm home in Florida, just waiting for chances to visit my home state one day.