a reflection on the chapters of life and how I’m feeling about 52 days of college left

It’s a Saturday night in my hometown, and I am sitting in bed.

I just got back from my spring break trip as a senior in college, and got to spend the day with my parents. I decided I’ll go home on Sunday morning.

Home means my college town.

Home used to be here. This house, this room. But now, it’s Blacksburg.

I look around my childhood bedroom, and it doesn’t feel like mine anymore.

The place I lived for eighteen years just doesn’t quite feel the same.

My mom moved her office desk in here, there’s a spare fan in the corner from an old dorm, and I hate the throw blanket covering my legs. It’s small and itchy, but it’s the only one left in this room.

I see decorations I put up five years ago.

I see the vinyl records on the shelves that I spent years collecting in high school. They sit in this room because it’s too much to haul from apartment to apartment.

The photo wall across from me shows some people I haven’t spoken with in-person since I graduated high school.

I see the calendar, frozen in time to the summer of 2023, because that was the last time I truly lived in this room.

This place used to be my sanctuary. I spent so much time adding little trinkets and things to make it feel like me.

But sitting here now, in a place I’ve written blog posts exactly like this, it just doesn’t feel like me.

It feels like the girl I was four years ago.

My eyes well up with tears as I scan the room.

Although I don’t think I am a completely different person, a lot has changed from 18 to 21.

I lived in five different places.

I’ve had seven different roommates.

I bought a car.

I lost a grandparent.

I’ve had two internships.

And I’ve grown up.

It’s a weird feeling, that somehow four years have gone by, and I’m going to have to leave another place that I learned to call home. A place I grew to love calling home.

A place where I turned each bedroom into my own. With photo-booth strips of the ones I love, souvenirs from trips, and my favorite blanket that stretches the length of my bed. Each year, each room became mine.

But it was never really about the trinkets and souvenirs, was it?

It’s the memories attached to them.

And the trinkets and things, they help, but it’s really the people.

They give you the memories.

I figured this out when I went down for dinner with my parents.

Although my bedroom doesn’t feel like mine, I always feel at home with them.

They are the reason I call a place home.

Unlike this bedroom, they grow with me.

So when I go back to Blacksburg and eat dinner with my roommates, I remember why my bedroom feels like home.

Because of them.

When I go for a walk and wave to at least ten people around the block, I remember why my bedroom feels like home.

Because of them.

So when I have these little moments of panic about graduating, the next steps, and saying goodbye to this chapter of my life, I think about this.

A house carries furniture. A bedroom carries trinkets.

But the people—that’s why we call a place home.

It doesn’t mean graduating in May is not going to totally suck.

It will.

I don’t wanna pack up my things. I don’t wanna move out of my apartment. I don’t wanna say goodbye to the place.

But it’s really the people. I don’t want to leave them.

Because next year, I won’t live within five minutes of all of my friends.

I won’t have an endless supply of clothes when I get bored of my own.

I won’t be able to ditch my responsibilities because it’s 65 degrees and sunny outside.

It sucks, it really does.

But when I look around my room, I realize I felt the exact same way four years ago.

I sat in this room and sobbed because I didn’t want to leave my family, my friends, and my cul-de-sac.

But it got better, didn’t it?

I moved, I met new people, and I grew to call the place home because of them.

And it didn’t mean my old home vanished.

My parents and hometown friends have been able to visit Blacksburg and meet all the ones I love here.

So yeah, maybe I outgrew the bedroom, but never the people.

And that is what will happen this time, too.

The ones you love, who love you back, they grow with you. If you love a new place or a new person, they love it too.

A year from now, I’ll be living a totally different life, and it’ll be weird.

But I’ll grow.

And the people I’ve met in this chapter of my life will grow with me.

Next year we’ll be visiting our friends in different places around the world. Maybe visiting new apartments, catching up over a glass of wine and some appetizers.

But then maybe we’ll have a sleepover in the new apartment. We’ll play weird card games, tell stories of new side characters in our lives, accidentally finish the bottle of wine, and laugh until our stomachs hurt.

And that feeling that we have now? It will still be there.

It may not be every day, but it’ll be there.

None of what I’m saying is supposed to ease all the worries, the stresses, and the sadness about moving on from college.

No matter what I write, even I’m still going to be a mess in 52 days.

But it helps me sleep at night when I realize that four years of living within five minutes of all my friends, an endless supply of clothes, and ditching my responsibilities on a sunny day, is more than most people get in a lifetime.

Hopefully that helps you too.

xoxo, megs