It didn't get cold immediately. While Californians and Georgians began to wrap themselves in scarves at the beginning of September, I continued to shave my legs for shorts. But now, in the beginning of November, the icy wind of winter is swirling around campus and even I, Colorado born and raised, slip on a sweater before leaving for class each day.

The vivid reds are fading from the trees, though the leaf collection I have taped to my wall still glows with fire as the sun sets. Every morning there is a cold mist that I pleasantly sleep through and at night my breath makes little clouds as I walk back to my dorm.

I can't say it's truly cold because it hasn't even snowed (mind, this was the first Halloween I can recall where there wasn't a single snowflake present) but it's starting to feel less like fall and more like winter, which is to say Wellesley is beginning to feel like home.

It's been a slow change. Every now and then I look around and realize everything feels familiar. I move deftly between the wooden chairs in the Tower dining hall. I take an especially deep breath on the steps of my dorm because if someone is using the laundry room it smells like warm, clean linen. I recognize my friends' slippers and laughter. I don't wake up when the radiator rattles awake at night and I've found the perfect water temperature in all the showers.

I'm settling in. I realized that it's been nearly a month and half since I've been home when I took a moment to water my first-year plant yesterday morning. It's a sort of potato vine, with waxy heart shaped leaves. When I went to the Greenhouse my first day, my mother told me it was the exact same as the one that sits in the corner of the dining room, where we always eat when the whole family comes for Thanksgiving.

That plant has seen more homecoming pictures and food comas than anyone in the Brunetti Family. I carefully chose the same species, settled it on the window sill, and absently watered it every evening.

But now the vines drape across the entire sill and meander down to get tangled in the cord of my laptop charger. Days of sun have tilted the leaves toward the chilled window glass and staring at it I wondered if will be strange to sleep in my bed when I go back to Colorado for Thanksgiving. Will the potato dinner rolls taste as good? Will the sunrises still look like rosé spilling down my street?

I've already missed the crisp first wind when the garage opens in the early morning in autumn. There are no mountains that turn from green to purple to black as the sun slowly sinks behind them. I have not once seen my mother wandering amongst her fading garden, dead heading in her pink terry cloth robe. I've missed my dad's too rich cooking and all of my sister's piercing piccolo practice. I haven't even had a bowl of split pea soup or curled up on my bed to read.

What if Thanksgiving feels like walking through a ghost town? What if I've changed in the months I've spent away?

Or worse, what if I haven't changed at all? What if when I have to go back to Wellesley I kick and scream and dream of all the ways I could just stay at home and never grow up? What if I never leave my childhood behind?

Life here is filled with two-fold memories. Every time it rains I remember watching water droplets race down the windows of my mom's old van. And then I think of the first time I ever took the Peter into Boston and my stomach was freezing because I wore a crop top. When the dining halls smell like chocolate, I think about making s'mores with my grandparents and then remember the warm hot chocolate I had the first time I went to Harvard Square. The dorm's evening teas are reminiscent of family Christmas carols and drinking cider in my friend's room.

Every moment is a silent kind of cross roads; I can see two paths constantly side by side and I know one day they'll veer a part and I will have to walk on one alone. And while it sounds a touch over dramatic, it's scary to think about being stuck in a rut.

Here in Wellesley, everything has a sense of permanence. Here, everything affects my future. Here are the friends I'll have for the rest of my life. Here's the passion that will influence my point of view until I die. Here are the career options that will shape my life and lifestyle.

It's like a swirling portal through time and all I can do is hope I'll emerge on the other side with some level of competence and success. And while it's all terribly scary and exciting, the sun rises every morning and sets every night. A few more leaves and acorns fall every day and a few more birds fly south.

Thinking too much about the future is like watching life from inside, face pressed to the glass without ever feeling the breeze.