Leaving for college has subjected me to a plethora of new experiences, but the one I was arguably least prepared for was the incessant deluge of “hellos” and “goodbyes.” The past 18 years of my life have been rather consistent, the people and things I am most familiar with tending not to subject me to abandonment, nor I them. Before these past three months, the longest amount of time I had spent away from my twin sister was a week when she went to Girl Scout Camp in the summer of our ninth-grade year. My mom went on vacation with a friend to Italy one summer and I missed her for 10 days. My dad would go on the occasional Boy Scout trip and I wouldn’t see him for a weekend. But close friends had always stayed in town, and I was never far from my family if I needed them. I was not practiced in the art of leaving, or of being left.
Because of this lack of experience, I am still surprised to find how I react when confronted with situations that require me to reacquaint myself with the people I have left behind and to say goodbye to them once again. I am still learning which people and which things I miss most about home. Before leaving, for instance, I would not have suspected that the activities I would miss the most would be among the most ordinary of my existence: riding in cars, sleeping in my own bed, cooking a real meal, even helping with chores I am not subject to at school.
What I find most strange about returning home is how easily I slip back into my old environment even though it has changed since we’ve last shared company. There is almost a sense of melancholy that accompanies the realization that your neighbors have repainted their house or that a new building has been built in town. Things have not come to a halt because I have left; they have gotten along just fine without me. I was never entirely essential to the function of the town, and yet I blend back in effortlessly upon my return.
Being away has changed the connotation of words I never thought twice about. Saying goodbye could be for the night, for a week or for three more months. The ache of missing people is the same when you are across town as it is when you are 800 miles apart.
What surprises me most, however, about my newfound comings and goings is how comfortable I am with being away. I still miss people terribly, but the environment I have established at Whitman is one that can, in many ways, stand as a substitute for the place I have left behind. Leaving for school has added a duality to my life with which I have never before been familiar. There are now two locations: two communities of people: that I am happy to call home. And though I would not wish to live without either, though while I am at school I still long to visit with people back in California and to patronize the places I frequent when I am home, the short amount of time I am able to spend with my family and my hometown makes me appreciate them more than I ever have before.
Saying hello again is still the most euphoric of experiences, and saying goodbye just as difficult as the first. But never before have the vineyards that line the hillsides of the Napa Valley looked so beautiful to my eyes, and never have I had a better vacation than upon returning home.+
