Grace In Between

I so vividly remember the day we spent endless hours hauling furniture and bed spreads and pillows and pictures of home into this 11 x 15 room of mine. I remember crying, a lot. I remember the questions scattering through my head; “How in the world will I fit all of this into this room?”, and more importantly, “How will I ever call this place home?” 

I really did wonder. On the first day, and many days after, I wondered. I wondered if I would ever be able to look at this 11 x 15 room on the third floor, and the endless caf food, and all of these strangers, and call it all “home”. 

I wondered if I would be loved here, and truly known here, and if I would really meet the lifelong best friends everyone talks about. I wondered if it would ever stop feeling like a really long summer camp and start feeling like a place I belonged to.  

I guess you could call this a spoiler alert, but I don’t wonder those things anymore. 

Because in 6 days, I will be filling up the boxes that I just emptied. And I will cry, again. Not because I am scared that freshman year will change my life, but because I am thankful that it did. Not because I am coming to this place where I am not yet known or loved, but because I am leaving the place where I am those two things most. Not because I am scared I won’t make friends, but because I am leaving the best ones I have ever had. 

Forever? No. 

But for 3 months. And in a dramatic college girl’s world, that is forever. 

So to the boxes that carried my life here in August, and the same boxes that will carry me back to my family in 6 days, hang tight. Don’t fall apart when I stuff in 2x the amount of junk that we came here with, and don’t disappear over the summer either. 

Because in 3 months, we’re coming right back. 

Home.