We finally did it! We made it to the end of the semester and while this year somehow felt like a lifetime, we are almost at the end. We finally get to tie 2016 up in a little red bow and put it on our front porch waiting patiently for the beginning of a new year, a new semester, and fresh start. But before all of this can occur, we get to go through my favorite activity of the year—we get to go pack up our bags and go home. And whether you’re driving a full seven hours home like I am or catching the red eye out of Tallahassee International Airport, there is really no feeling like the anticipation of heading back to the cozy familiar.

I’m sure for many of you, there is some methodological science to your going home routine. For some, it includes driving 90 mph on the I-75 until you hit quarter tank then stopping at the same little gas station in some random town and downing a Red Bull to stay properly caffeinated for the rest of the journey. For others the journey includes lots of sugary or salty snacks, movies, a few friends, and a ticket on the Red Coach. But for all of us, it includes finally seeing signs, streets, and maybe even people we haven’t seen in quite some time. It means walking up to our house that has always remained the same but somehow still looks a little different every time we come home—maybe mom moved a photo that once seemed married to the bathroom wall or dad repainted the living room. It means feeling your dog’s warm body jump on you and dye the collar of your shirt with his slobber as he attempts the lick every inch of your face in excitement. It includes watching your family members flutter around you taking your luggage and offering you a readily made meal they made in preparation for your homecoming. Maybe it’s seeing, feeling, and hearing all of the familiar places in your home that you discovered growing up, like the one floorboard that creaks a little when you step on it in the right place. All of this contributes to that ‘finally’ feeling, that feeling that you’re finally home.

Then there are the weird feelings—like when you walk into your room for the first time in a while and things feel eerily still. Or when your parents repurpose your room into a home gym, closet space, etc. Or your little sibling has taken it upon himself or herself to move into your room without your permission. A part of you feels like your spirit no longer exists in the room and your temporary presence provides only small candle compared to the fiery essence that used to fill the room. But you adjust, remembering that you don’t live there anymore and that this residence, much like most of our residencies, was simply a long-term temporary. But soon you find yourself falling into the same patterns like muscle memory. Maybe hanging out with the same friends, taking the same route to your favorite places, and getting into the same arguments with your siblings. But something still feels different. Something has changed—it’s you. Well, you and the people around you. Your parents look a little older and your siblings seem a little more mature. Even the conversations you have with your old high school friends have changed. You are not high school you anymore. You have shed that skin and evolved into a new person.

These realizations don’t come to you right away. They are slow. They show up in nuanced moments you don’t realize until you’re nodding off to sleep in the same bed you slept in the night before your graduation, your first kiss, maybe even your first day of middle school. But somewhere along the way you realize the beauty in coming home. Even though everyone from home is also growing and changing, they are still here in the same zip code where you turned fourteen. You, on the other hand, are going through exponential growth in college. You are learning more about the world and yourself everyday. You are making your own opinions on politics, morality, and values instead looking to your parents. You are growing up—and you realize that’s okay because home will always be there. Home will always offer comfort when you need it. Home will always provide the sense of familiar, you are never an outsider at home. Home will always remind you of who you are, where you came from, and where you’re going.