I admit, every time I do change my lifestyle a bit—coming back home or moving back in—it takes me a few days to warm up to it. Even moving out and moving in for the third year in a row was kind of difficult because I can grow too comfortable with my living spaces.

But, whenever someone does ask me how home for the break has been for me, I seem to always have the same answer.

It’s strange when you are away from home and you’re living such an exciting lifestyle. You’re hardly ever home except to shower and sleep (or maybe that rare gem of a free weekend day). You’re living a very opportunistic lifestyle, taking hold on the very things that present itself to you that you think you can grow from. You’re open to invitations. You ask to get out whenever you can. You want to venture into the big city as much as you can, and spend weeknights going out for “study breaks” eating or getting coffee. You attend meetings almost every night of the week. And, you can hardly find the time for yourself when your daily life seems to be serving those around you.

(That lifestyle, I might add, I devote only to this year. As a girl with so many things she wants to do and get done, my last year should be devoted to myself and the things I want to do—spending the time to further my writing professionally, and actively making more music.)

When I come back home, I’m immediately reminded of what I’ve grown up on. The weather is obviously different—sometimes a brisker cold, sometimes a warmer sun. The people are drastically different as well—church-going middle-class suburban white people who I’ve grown a kinship to all my life. It’s a quiet, slow-moving town with that community feel. It’s a lovely place to have grown up in. It reminds me of those wild dreams of that small-town girl who felt so stuck in her small life. It reminds me of the simple family and people values that were shown to me growing up. It reminds me of the time I’ve felt most in my element and truest to myself—the shy girl who never went out much but made an exciting life for herself inside the place she made a home out of herself.

I’ve always lived a very private lifestyle, which has probably allowed others the opportunity to think of myself as “wise beyond her years” when I was young, just because I observed so much when I was young from older peers. But, with such a private lifestyle that was so observant and sympathetic to the things that happen in life shown to me personally or through stories I’d see or listen to, I had developed a yearning to share that experience. To share that knowledge, that feeling, or those thoughts I had of my own on something.

I observed and learned so much from people growing up, that the only way I knew to express myself was in a very private way—through writing, media, music, the things I’d show through dancing or playing the guitar.

So, when it comes to returning back home, I feel that I’ve been so blessed with a wonderful upbringing that only pushes me to share my own experiences. Of course it wasn’t all flowers and daisies growing up, especially as a teenager with her own angst, but, in hindsight, I wouldn’t have it any other way if it’s made me the person I am today.

I found myself here. And I’m sure many other people can say the same of their own hometowns. It’s just funny to realize how your town has made you into the person you are, from what you did and what your living circumstances were.

Home… Of course it is a place to always be grateful for. And though my life here is very slow and not entirely “active” (i.e. I don’t get out too much, bahah) it, indeed, is a refreshing and rejuvenating time. And sometimes, we all need to be reminded of where we came from and what we grew up on and why we find the things we are doing now so important… Because things like this make you feel so humbled with where you came from again, that it lets you live your life in the best attitude possible.

Remember yourself.