Though I graduated in May, this post is for the Senior Summaries series that I started. Finishing my last year of college and now going into a completely different season of life brought strange feelings that still linger now. I’m not sad, I’m not wishing I did everything differently. It’s just this longing feeling that I felt my last year of college and still do.

At the moment, that feeling of uncertainty over whether I will get a job and be able to move away has subsided into another type of uncertainty over how everything will work out. I have moved away and I have a job that I start tomorrow morning with an apparel corporate office. I got what I asked for, so why am I so anxious? Right now I could attribute this feeling to homesickness, since I have moved almost 5 hours away to where I barely know anyone. The confusing part is that I felt this way all throughout my senior year too, when I was only 30 minutes away from home. This was when I realized the gap between how much I value having my own space away from home and how much I love the comfort of home. I would enjoy being away at college having a great – though often very stressful – time in my little student apartment, taking classes, having close access to my friends, but then I would suddenly feel this very slight, odd sadness and longing that made me sick and tired of my environment and everyone in it. They don’t make pills for these types of things, and I wondered why I even felt that way. It was a feeling of wanting to be home but not missing a place in particular, just the people and the feeling that I consider comforting and warming…home.

It’s this same feeling that crept back in the day my parents left my new apartment and went back home. Although I love my new area in a bigger city and I am excited for what’s to come, I couldn’t help but feel like I had been dropped off on an island somewhere all alone. I’m the type of person who loves being alone and having my own space, so what surprises me the most is that I could ever not want to be left alone. This feeling, I’m guessing, is normal and I just couldn’t make sense of it. I’ll gradually start making this new city a home as I start to discover new places and things to do, start making friends, and get this one bedroom decorated the way I like. Regardless of where I move and how far I go in life, it will never be home and I will always miss that comfort. That’s one metaphorical pill I’ll have to swallow.

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(Photo from Wit + Delight Tumblr)