Home Sweet Home
A few days ago, I arrived back to campus on a bus with my wind ensemble family. It was dark, abandoned on campus, and so much colder than the weather we had on our 6 day trip in Austin. Yet despite this gloomy environment, I finally felt like I was coming back home. At the beginning of each semester during my freshman and sophomore years Tufts was still too new to call home. Plus, I didn’t feel like I had developed connections to people and places on campus that went as deep as those I had back home, in the suburban village I grew up in near New York City. Coming back from my semester abroad in Paris, I was too homesick for my apartment in the 16th arrondissement of the most beautiful city in the world. And when I arrived back to campus to start my final year at Tufts, just a few short months ago, there were too many questions swirling around my head to even think about calling Tufts my home. Would senior year live up to my expectations? Would I continue making new friends? Would I be able to handle writing a thesis?
But on the cold January night just a few days ago, rolling my suitcase along College Ave, I felt like I was walking home. I’d been living in the same house for a full year at this point and each step I took got me one step closer to a place I wanted to be. I was used to the Boston winter that seeped into my jacket, the flashing lights of Powder House Circle, and the pattern of potholes on the sidewalk. I was not used to this homecoming feeling being in Somerville. In some ways it’s scary that I feel so much at home here, as I only have four more months left to call Tufts my home. But I know that it’s worth it—I will take the scariness for all of the comfort and openness I feel in my off-campus house and in the greater Tufts community.
I remember my cousin telling me that when we stepped onto the campus of the school he wound up attending, he felt it was the right place. I, on the other hand, never felt that sensation. I choose to apply to and attend Tufts after meticulously going over its characteristics. I spent hours making lists, reading the website, and traveling in my car to see the school for the third time. At the time, I choose Tufts because the things it had to offer filled in the boxes on my college checklist. I never would have guessed that Tufts would become a place I could call home. I guess the walk to my off-campus house for my last semester at Tufts is the closest I can come to identifying this transition from checked boxes to home. So for anyone that has not had that “aha” moment that your family and friends talk about, just hold out a bit longer. If a school seems right to you for one reason or another, have faith that you’ll feel at home there eventually.