The Roughness of Coming “Home”

Just a few days ago, I had this lasting, looming thought: I do not want to go “Home.” 

Home to that place where my childhood friends are, where my parents are, my dog too; where I have so many happy memories of friendship and love and growing up; where my whole life has been and still is. Who would not want to go home to that? Well, I, I didn’t. And I feel real guilt because I dragged my feet all the way to the train station and all the way until my final stop. 

Maybe my mind was consumed with wondering: how was I going to balance this new life I have at college with the life I’ve had at home? Or maybe I was questioning: how could both fit? Maybe I was anxious: seeing everyone at home again, some I’d missed more than others. Maybe I had already wanted there to be a goodbye.

In confession, I will say that I have no idea exactly why I didn’t want to come Home. The maybes just piled on. Something in me simply did not want to. I felt almost sick at the thought of it. My stomach kept turning. I felt not ready, it was too soon. And the weight of that sits heavy on my tongue, like a truth I’m not sure I’m allowed to say out loud yet because of how it could hurt my friends and family. I did not want to hurt their feelings in my resistance. But also, how could it be ignored? 

Unfortunately, this secret truth of mine stood: I did not want to come “Home.”
To the house where my childhood laughter echoes.
To the streets where I learned to drive. To my neighbors and close proximity to friends.
To the people who know every version of me except the one I’m becoming here.
To the bedroom that once held all my dreams, and now, now feels too small for them.

I asked myself too many times, “what’s wrong with you? I mean, who wouldn’t want to walk back into familiarity, into love, into something so soft and known? Who wouldn’t want to escape back into childhood?”

Well…I couldn't believe it, but…me. It was me who didn’t want to.

It hurts to admit that. It hurts more than I expected to have to feel like my “home” is not my home anymore solely because I have made a life somewhere else. To have to feel like I couldn’t keep both alive and vibrant. My new life was stitched together by late-night conversations, new routines, unexpected best friendships, and the quiet confidence that comes from independence and being away from what has always known me. I would say honestly that I have grown in ways I didn’t see happening at Home. Ways I didn’t choose. Ways I didn’t know I needed.

And coming Home, coming back to a place frozen in the memory of who we all used to be, makes those changes feel loud and unsettling, even unwelcome.

There is a specific ache in stepping into a room that hasn’t changed when I have.
The photos still taped on the wall of people I don’t talk to anymore.
The coins on the dresser that used to mean everything.
The bed cold. It waiting for a version of me to come to sleep.

Coming Home is sometimes the hardest thing. And being Home, even harder. 

Throughout my break, I spent so much time in consideration of why. Why was this so difficult? Why was I not excited to be at Home like my friends were? What was so wrong with me? 

After the fact, in hindsight now that I am back at school, I have come to my conclusion. 

Coming Home, however hard it may be for a person, always teaches us how to stay gentle with our own evolution. It reminds us of how far we’ve come since then. It welcomes the unfamiliar softness or brings about a sharpness in you. It either listens when you speak differently, dream differently, desire differently or it rejects those new versions of you. It teaches you who can meet you where you are now, while showing you too who is still calling out for someone you no longer are.

And sometimes, heartbreakingly, it teaches you that letting go is also a kind of love. A kind of bravery. A kind of growing up.

Coming Home, to what has loved you and what has hurt you, to what was chosen for you and what you no longer have to choose back, opens you up to reveal what you carry. It tells you that you no longer need to hold onto what has always been. But you can always love that past of yours. You can love it from a far. 

I found too that the guilt I was feeling mostly came from within. My anxiety was self produced. No one else wondered how my coming Home would feel for me. No one else questioned my belonging to it. I alone put the pressure on. I alone bore the fault. 

But there should be no judgment in coming Home. No self-punishment for not fitting back into the life I left. I had to tell myself I am not failing if I am changing. And that others are not failing if they are changing too. In this I found that I placed expectations on coming Home. I expected everyone to have not changed. I was the one holding them to old stories. Meanwhile, everyone else moved on.

This is what people do when they try to grow.

This is what people do when they’re trying to learn about themselves again.

So I had to learn that it is okay to carry forward only what feels true now. What looks true now. Who is true now. It is okay to bury old versions of yourself and grieve old versions of others with gratitude and gentleness.

And it is okay to fight too, to cling tightly, to the people and pieces of home that keep showing you, over and over, that they want to grow with you. Especially those best friends and family. 

Coming Home may teach you that this place you once knew so intimately no longer holds you in the same way.

Maybe it is no longer the main part of you.

Maybe it is not your landing place anymore.

But it will always be where you’ve belonged. A root buried deep beneath all the new ones you are learning to grow. A chapter that shaped you, even if you’re writing a different one now.

Yes, it is unbelievably sad to outgrow a place, a structure you were told you’d always love. To miss what once was while knowing you can’t go back to it.

But, sadness doesn’t have to be so loud and debilitating. Sadness does not mark failure. It is evidence of love. It is proof that home mattered and continues to matter, even in its changing form.

I’ve decided that in order for me to embrace coming Home again in just a few weeks, I have had to let the memory of Home hurt first. Let it ache. Let it confuse me, stretch me, and then soften me.

But most of all, don’t let it convince me that I am wrong for growing while being away.

I believe that this discomfort is temporary. And so is the transition. The ache too.

One day, I know I will look around and realize I’ve built something new and steady and mine.
One day, the fear of returning home will fade into something gentler. Kinder.
One day, I will understand that outgrowing something isn’t at its end.

Until then, I will be patient.