For seventeen years, 19th Ave has been my home. The aluminum tan siding on the second house on the left is always a sight for sore eyes. My family moved in when I was just 5. I'm now a senior in college, and I still can't wait till I can get home again. Graduation is in 104 days (not that I'm counting or anything...).
Going to school out of state has always presented a challenge. For starters, you learn to grow up in a hurry when going home every weekend is almost an impossibility. I go to school in Illinois, but my 19th Ave. home is in Minnesota, almost 400 miles away. I'm blessed to have such an amazing family. My parents have loved and supported me in everything I do, and have given me plenty of opportunities to experience the world (more on that in a later post). My hilarious younger brother is even farther away; he's going to school in North Dakota. Without the love and guidance of Mom and Dad, and without Dave cracking a joke to make my day, I went through a lot of tough experiences on my own. Don't get me wrong; I still called or Skyped Mom, Dad and Dave at least once a week, and we texted often. When tough times did come up, I still talked it through with my parents before deciding what to do. But when you grow up in a house where the unwritten rule is something to the effect of "Thou shalt not go to thine bed without hugging thy family goodnight," there were a lot of frustrating nights without a hug from my loving, caring family.
Being far away from home provides you the blessing, and curse, that is Independence. When you're out on your own, you get quite a bit of freedom to try new things. Dabbling in improv comedy, joining a fraternity, even volunteering to be the Easter bunny at a baseball game are great things I've done that I probably wouldn't have had I stayed at home.
And on the other hand.....
Dad always said, "Everybody makes mistakes. It's a part of life; it's going to happen. Mistakes are ok as long as you learn from them." He also said, "It's far less painful when you can learn from the mistakes of others." It seems at times like I forget that second part... Maybe if Mom and Dad were closer, I wouldn't have tried parkour at 2 in the morning. It probably would've saved me a trip to the ER to get stitches. Or maybe if Mom had asked about me getting a paper done, I wouldn't have had to stay up late the night before it was due to write it. Then again, maybe those were lessons I needed to learn on my own...
In short, being away from home has truly shaped me into the person I am today. Whether the experiences were good or bad, I've grown a lot in these past three and a half years. I can look back at the person I was in high school and say I'm almost a completely different person now than I was then. As I head into the final stretch, my last semester of college, I have no idea what the road ahead will look like. I don't know where I will end up after graduation, or where I will be working. But there's one thing I know for sure: I can't wait until I get to go back to my home on 19th Ave.
