I came back to Houston for LNY yesterday, and I miss it here. A lot more than I realized while in Austin. UT's college experience seems very different from what I experienced during college, and I think I know more of why I was so drawn to Rice now.
There's a sense of welcome here that stems not only from Rice, its atmosphere, and the friends I still have there, but from the 20+ years of my life that I invested here. I know this place, and in some sense, it knows me - the house I grew up in is still here, and though Jimmy and Pat have made changes to it while they've lived here, I can still remember when my parents and I built parts of it. Austin is so new; but new is not the way most people would want to describe their home.
Since then, it seems things have been pulled apart with family and I both moving away. Nostalgia hits hard whenever I come home and open up old boxes to find old memories that I had nearly forgotten, and I toy with the idea of either transferring to Rice for grad school or finding a job in order to move back home.
Is it easier for people who moved away from home for college and then stayed in the same town after graduation? Is it as difficult adjusting to post-college life?
3 comments:
I wouldn't say it's something unusual. I didn't stay home for college, yet I still miss Rice and Rice people a lot. I even toyed with the idea of being an RA for a Harvard Undergrad dorm, I think in part to re-live the college experience. And when I've come back to visit Rice, it has been wonderful. At the same time, there are parts of me that are glad I've been forced to move on.
Have you ever considered that what you're going through is like breaking up with a girlfriend or your first love? Just a thought...
All my eggs are in the Houston basket. Even literally, with my fiancee. Distance sucks.
eurgh, matt. that definitely sucks. are you moving back eventually?
mithun - mm, i can agree with that - there are reasons to move on. I don't think this is exactly like breaking up with a first love (I remember that feeling pretty vividly). It's similar in a lot of respects, but not all. I had friends to lean on back then; I feel more alone here in Austin.
I think breaking up was also more of a huge, sudden despairing moment as opposed to a slow doubt and worry here.
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