The Best Four Months Of My Life

It’s December 12th, 2021. In two days I will make the 12 hour journey back home to North Carolina for Christmas. I want nothing more than to prolong these moments.

This week has been one of the busiest weeks of my life. Every night I’ve stayed up past 1am doing the most random but best of things—trips to Walmart, racing around the room in swivel chairs, playing drums, watching the stars, going out to dinner, having deep conversations while walking under Christmas lights, listening to music in a parked car for hours, watching movies, and a white elephant party with some of my favorite people. It’s gotten me thinking why this week has been so different, why I’m up before the sun and asleep late. It’s because time is fleeting and although nobody wants to talk about it, you can feel it in the air on campus. Everyone knows it. We can feel time passing through our finger tips and we all want it to stop for just a moment so we can hold on to these people and theses memories before we forget.

Four months ago I packed up my life and moved over 600 miles away from home in hopes of finding my place in this world. Little did I know how much this place would change me. I’ve done so much and not enough all at the same time. I’ve learned to sail, went to a Surfaces concert, gone way outside my comfort zone, swam in the ocean, seen over 20 sunrises, seen over 40 sunsets, turned 21, learned how much I love to write, joined the school newspaper, adventured in natural springs (among other places), swam in bioluminescence, gotten tattoos, went to NYC on a whim, had class at the beach, collected more shells than I have room for, and acted like a kid again. I’ve grown in ways I cannot express.

Even as I sit here studying for finals and everyone, including me, is stressed out, I’m so grateful to be in this moment.

Through it all—the long nights, the broken laundry machines, the stress of exams, the bad cafeteria food—I’m at college for the early mornings watching the sunrise, for talking about poetry books late into the night, and for conversations about dreams and goals and places we want to go to. I’m here for the sunsets and swimming in the ocean and although going to the coffee shop is not good for my bank account, I’m here for that too. I’m here to learn new things and to find what gets me inspired. I’m here for the dancing (even when I have no idea what I’m doing) and the concerts and the people who genuinely get me. I’m here for the beaches, the springs, and the moments where you drive a little slower to make the moment last a little longer. I’m here because I genuinely don’t want to leave the friends I’ve made. For one of the first times in my life, I feel like I’ve found my tribe, and I’m not ready to lose them. I’ve come to learn that I’ve been slowly creating my chosen family, and if I wasn’t here right now, I wouldn’t know these ones. 

Saying goodbye in the past didn’t mean anything. It was just another phrase that was commonly used when leaving a place. But here, goodbyes hurt. I’ve never had something before that I knew I was going to miss this much. Knowing that I won’t be with these people for over a month is a lonely feeling, but it’s also wonderful, because it means that I’ve found my people. It’s a kind of goodbye that hurts your heart because you’ve been lucky enough to find something so beautiful in life that it pains you.

I have a tribe that’s different from the rest of the world, instead of it being in one place, they are scattered around the country. I kind of like it like that, it makes leaving not so hard because I know that even though I’m leaving one family, I have another one that I’m going to. 

Home, to me, is found in a bunch of places. But most of all, it’s found in my people here.

At this moment, this is where I’m meant to be. I may not love it 24/7 but I’m finding myself and my people and for that, it’s all worth it. 

I think we’re all here for the same reason. None of us want to get to “real life” just yet, so we found ourselves going to school in a place that we thought would make us happy. Little did we know that the happiness we were looking for was found in people, and in them, a new home, one way better than we could have ever imagined. 

So this is not actually a goodbye, it’s a thank you, for all you have given me, and for all we have done together. It’s a look forward into the future at all the things we are going to do. And even though it physically hurts my heart to be leaving this place, it’s a feeling I wouldn’t trade for anything.

I know that in two days I’ll park outside my friends dorms, we’ll hug for a long time and not want to let go. We’ll say I love you and Travel safe and with a heavy heart I’ll get back in my car and begin the drive north. Once I hit the highway, a little too far to turn back, a song will come on from one of my playlists that will remind me of one of my favorite moments and I’ll cry, a little bit out of sadness, but mostly out of pure happiness that I’ve finally found my place in this world.

May we never loose sight of how far we’ve come.