Our late teens and early twenties provide us with the opportunity to go back and forth between our hometowns and school. As liberating as it can be to leave one place and seek a recharge in another, it can also feel like a burden to find a balance between what can seem like such different lives.
When you’re happy and comfortable at school, it’s reassuring, but when you go home, sometimes it feels like you’re stepping into the past and putting your life on hold. While that’s not usually a problem when you’re just home for the weekend, it can really make you feel stuck when you’re home for the holidays. Not having only one place that feels like “home” during this time of our lives can be confusing, but winter break is the perfect time to work on finding the balance between your life on campus and in your hometown.
We all know how tough it is to feel like your life is in two separate places, but mastering the art of packing can help you feel more comfortable going back and forth. If possible, it’s helpful to have a few basic pieces that stay at home, such as socks, underwear, pjs, sweatshirts, tennis shoes, comfy clothes, and maybe even a dress or two. In addition, it’s also helping to have some spare shower items at home too. Not only do you not have to worry about these items getting lost in transition, you don’t have to worry about lugging them back and forth, or even worse, forgetting them all together. This makes having two homes a lot easier.
Decorating your room in both places can make the transition feel a lot smoother. Having pictures of friends and family in both places serves as good reminder that you are not living two separate lives, but instead, one cohesive life. Your rooms don’t need to be identical, but keeping a few comforting touches in both places can make you feel at ease going from home to school.
When you’re home, revisit, but don’t rewrite your high school and childhood experiences. Let yourself make new memories without forcing yourself to feel the same way about places, people, and activities that you used to love or dislike. Making new, adult perceptions and decisions about what’s important to you can set you free from the past and allow you to move onto building a bright future in new places.
While it’s only natural that over time you’ll grow closer to your friends from school, maintaining friendships in your hometown can make it much easier to go home for extended periods of time. Having two or three close friends who understand different parts of who you were and appreciate the person that you’ve grown into is much more valuable than having dozens of acquaintances from high school.
Giving you life over the holidays a purpose can really help to eliminate any feelings of being “on hold”. Get a part-time job, visit the family members you always say you will, or work on that project that you never have time to devote to during the academic year. Remember that it’s more than okay for both places feel like home. Be present wherever you are and embrace the fact that that life is a series of transitions that we should make the most of!
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