They say home is where the heart is. Ain’t that the truth. 

I have always been a homebody. I miss it when I’m away and I don’t want to leave it when I’m there. This is about to get cheesy so please feel free to roll your eyes. But as I’ve gotten older I realized that it isn’t really my home that I like, but the company. I mean, I love my home. It’s where I grew up for Pete’s sake! But, now that I have my own life in my own apartment in my own city, which I love just as much, I realize that my childhood home isn’t supposed to be where I live full-time anymore. 

If you know me and are shocked by that statement because you know how homesick I used to get and how attached I still get, believe me, I’m right there with you. I guess I am growing up! 

It’s just that, when I’m home I don’t have the same motivation I do when I’m at my apartment. I have less drive to workout, I eat worse, I find it harder to focus on getting work done. It makes sense that now home is supposed to be somewhere I visit, somewhere I come back to, somewhere I go to relax and take a break. A vacation of sorts. 

While I love my bed there and my shower and my desk and the living room couch, those are all things that I can bring with me elsewhere. Well, maybe not the shower, but I can try to replicate the water pressure for sure. What I can’t bring with me is my family. So, what I love most about going home is seeing my sister and my mom and my dad and my pupper. 

I love walking into my sister’s room a billion times a day to bother her or just say “heyyyy” or “whatchya doing?” and then walking out. Eventually, she stops saying “WHAT MEGAN????” and invites me to watch One Tree Hill with her on her bed or random Cody Ko videos. Are we Team Lucas or Team Nathan by the way? I go back and forth like every other day. 

I love going on drives to Target and the grocery store with my mom and yelling at her for changing the radio station 500 times in two minutes. “MOM. STOP.” I laugh because it’s so ridiculous. She doesn’t even give the songs a chance! We have since graduated to listening to podcasts on longer drives where we both laugh and leave the dials alone for a long time.

I love going downstairs while my dad is trying to work, sitting on the couch across from him and staring and smiling until he looks up and laughs. I then proceed to bug him and ask him stupid questions until he tries to get stern, telling me I need to go back upstairs, but then he laughs out of love (and frustrated defeat) knowing that I won and I will never stop pushing his buttons. 

I love taking Chloe on poopy walks and seeing her light up after she does her business, walking fast and proud, eventually running all the way home with those short little legs of hers. I say, “do you feel lighter on your feet Chlo?!” and she goes “yupppppers!!!!” She looks so funny when she runs. 

In the days leading up to the gang being broken up, I would joke and say that I am staying and nobody has to worry, I’m not going anywhere. 

“Yeah okay Megan.” 

“Whatever you say Megan.” 

“Oh, great.” 

I was joking. But I think part of me wouldn’t mind staying and was waiting for them to say the same. The other bigger part of me knows though, that it is time to leave so I can come back home again some other time. 

So, when my sister left a few weeks ago I hugged her and literally didn’t let go. She had to squirm her way out of my arms and I watched her drive away, jumping up and down and waving until we couldn’t see the car anymore. I walked around her room to make sure that she didn’t forget anything. I also use her bathroom when she is gone just to, you know, make sure the water is still running and stuff like that - it also may or may not be about 15 feet closer to the living room.

The day before I left, I cried to Chloe. “You don’t get it,” I said. “I’m leaving for a while.” I always wonder when I leave for school, if she ever really notices how long it’s been. My dad told me that she doesn’t really know time. I hope that’s true. I cried the morning I left when I was hugging her goodbye again, holding her and kissing her everywhere. She ate deer poop about a week ago so I wasn’t letting her kiss me for a while, but I let her that morning. I hope she breaks that bad habit of hers while I am away this time. It’s not a cute look.

I cried hugging my dad goodbye while he said everything was going to be great and fine and amazing once I get to school, which I knew to be true. We drove off and I was still crying. I didn’t stop crying until we got to the highway. My mom grabbed my leg and shook it. “It’s okay Megan.” 

“I know it’s okay,” I said. And I do. Everything is going to be totally fine and I am so excited to get back to school and my friends and my apartment. I had been missing it while being home and I was eager to get back. But I still cried. It’s a natural reaction for me at this point. 

My mom dropped me off at my apartment and stuck around for a few minutes but had to get back on the road. I hugged her and said “BYE MOMMY I LOVEEE YOU” even after she shut my apartment door. I went to my room to watch her drive off and she knew I would be there. She waved to me from the car as she left. We’ve been doing that since freshman year of college. 

I am 20 years old and still cry when I leave my family sometimes. AND THAT’S OKAY. Crying is good for you, I think. To me, it’s therapeutic. It is a stress relief. Sometimes I just feel one coming on or I just cry out of nowhere. Just let it happen. Besides, after being home for so long during the pandemic, this is the most time I have ever spent with my family, all of us being under one roof for so long. I got attached. That’s normal. It’s okay. 

Like my mom said to me, it’s okay to like to come home but you need to leave it so that you have something to miss and something to want to come back for. 

Moms always know best. She’s right. Shocker. 

I normally say “Smile. It’s good for you.” And that’s true. Don’t stop smiling. But sometimes… “Cry. It’s good for you.”