Student Blog: [Not] Far From the Home I Love

This weekend, I return to New York for my spring semester after a six-week winter break at home. I didn’t really want to leave NYC. I was caught up in my groove of shopping for my own food, taking the subway to get around, and going to dance class every day. I love the sound, liveliness, and motion that the city brings, and I was nervous that I would lose this motion that I craved when coming home.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve loved being home and seeing my friends and family. Everyone comes home for the holidays. It’s a special quiet time to reset and be removed from everything. Parties, catching up with friends and family, exchanging gifts, and festive meals were such an exciting time to hear about how everyone’s first semester went.

I’ve loved spending time with my friends, soaking up the California sun while NYC is in a snowstorm, volunteering at the middle school musicals, and spending time with my brother. I didn’t realize how much I missed my community while I was so caught up in the rush of the city.

But nobody at home understands the rush of your train coming the moment you get to the platform or the luxury that is an NYC slice of pizza after a late night out. And after New Year's and the excitement of the holidays, being home sunk in - my parents making meals, doing my laundry, sleeping in, not being as active as I was in the city, and not having music theory homework to complete every week. It took a minute to reset and be okay with having more alone time, working to earn money for the semester, my parents paying when we eat out, making sure I put gas in the car, and not talking to the people I talked to every day… every day.

But now, since I have a longer winter break, my home friends have gone back to their schools, and I am in an odd limbo before heading back home to NYC. Home has been a weird word to define since I’ve been back from school, and I have had a lot of time to think about it. Home is always going to be my community, where my friends and family are in California, but now I have a new home. I have a new community and a new groove where I am, for the first time, independent in New York City. 

While I am in school, I will live most of my year at school in my new home in New York, and for at least the next four years, my sense of home will shift between two places. While I am in school, at least I will always have to think about what needs to be packed/moved, and all my stuff will never be in the same place.  I love my up-tempo NYC life, but a care package from home never hurts. Home is where the heart is, and as of now, my heart is in two places.