There is something so odd about living out of a suitcase in your childhood bedroom. There’s some indescribable feeling about driving through your hometown after coming back from college. Everything is so familiar yet sort of foreign. When I came back to my hometown of Cincinnati for my freshman year Thanksgiving, I had a lot of feelings that I couldn’t sort out or really understand.
Going back and forth almost seems as though you live a double life, especially for out-of-state students. No one from my graduating class came to Pitt, so it was really just me. I grew as a person and became the college version of myself. However, when I went back home, I realized no one (apart from my family and best friend that I talk to almost every day) knew the college version of me. In their eyes, I was still the shy high school Grace. So, on one hand, I felt like I was trapped in the box of who I was in high school, but on the other hand, I did feel like I was truly at home again.
There’s something so nice about returning to the comfort of your old room, seeing everything you had left on the walls and how so little had changed (apart from my little sister’s stuff that she moved in when she decided to take over both of our rooms). Things I took for granted, like showering in my own shower, waking up and sitting in my living room, eating my mom’s cooking, and watching TV with my dad, I cherished upon returning. Coming home always makes me realize how special the time I spend with my parents, sister, and best friend is.
Going back home also makes me appreciate my college friends, friends who mean so much to me that I miss them in the week I’m home, friends who know me for the person I wanted to be and then became. I love Pittsburgh, not only for the city itself, but for the person it’s allowed me to become. Now in my sophomore year, I’m no longer in a dorm but in an apartment that I love. I tend to find myself calling my apartment “home”, as well as calling my childhood home, “home”. It’s almost like I am caught in a limbo, between the two homes and stages of my life. I am not quite ready to let go of my hometown, but I’ve fallen in love with Pittsburgh.
Every time I go back to Cincinnati, my head fills with a tangle of emotions, thoughts, and feelings. Every time I come back to Pittsburgh, my head also fills with a tangle of emotions, thoughts, and feelings. On the drive, each way, I always listen to Noah Kahan’s View Between Villages. Somehow, Kahan is able to encapsulate my thoughts and help me bridge the gap between my two lives.