Thanksgiving thoughts and feelings

When I was looking at colleges, I knew I wanted to get out of Berea, my hometown. I had seen so many of my friends graduate from Berea HS, go to Baldwin-Wallace (the college IN Berea), and stay. And do nothing. They’d hang out with the same people, they’d go to the same shops, eat at the same restaurants. That always puzzled me. Why stay with what you know? Are you so scared to venture out and find out what else is out there? And truthfully, it always bothered me. I sometimes wanted to just shake them and say “LEAVE! There is so much more you will never know if you don’t go!”

I’m proud to say I left. I got out, as it were. And I truly believe I’ve had the best college experience I ever could have had. I guess that’s why it’s so weird for me to come back home and realize how much I did leave behind. No, not leave behind- move away from. I knew that going away was only semi-permanent.

The point is, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately. About life, about how I want to live mine, about how I want to impact places, people, things. I see people that I know from high school now that stayed, my friends, the ones I want to see when I come home. And you know what? They’ve made a life. They may go to the same restaurants, they may see the same people, but not ALL the same people. They have moved on, grown up. I think they really get it, this whole “life” thing.

I always feel so nostalgic whenever I come home. Some of this is because of that, some of this is a lot of my sitting down on a bus and thinking about life for 4 hours.

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I’m back in Peoria now, and procrastinating on a paper. And my house is incredibly COLD. Like, freezing.

And I think I’m ready to not be a student any longer.

Till then,

Kevin