observations on the last day of Break

my stuff is scattered everywhere and maybe that is why I am having such a hard time getting myself to pack. There are piles of clothes on the ground, books on the desk and I'm not sure where my hairbrush went off too.

It's been a weird day.

I was going to fill today up with seeing some friends and saying some goodbyes, but of course, the howling wind raging outside making the air thick with white snow has made any attempt at leaving my home impossible. Instead, I spent the early afternoon curled up on the couch with my mom, watching NCIS and drinking hot cocoa while the fire in the wood stove burned comfortably and my kitties curled up at the hearth, drinking in the heat. Not what I planned, but I was oddly okay with it, because to me, that scene is exactly what I imagine when I picture "home" in my head. Maybe with a slight variation; sometimes I am watching the weather channel, sometimes I am curled up in the chair with a book, sometimes I am crocheting. But the setting is always the same: the warm fire in the wood stove, the kitties on the hearth and the cold wind howling outside, blowing around the snow.

But now, as I am sitting on a bed that really isn't mine, in a room that is pink and green instead of blue and looking at all of my stuff strewn across the floor and in a suitcase instead of hanging neatly in a closet, i realize that this really isn't my home anymore. It's quite a painful realization, and it scares the living daylights out of me as well, but it's true. While New England and New Hampshire will always be the place I am from, it is becoming more clear that this is not necessarily my home anymore. I mean, New Hampshire will always be home to me, but in a different kind of way. This is where I grew up, this is the place that shaped who the person I am today and these are the places where I have the fondest of memories. Yet, while being home the last two weeks has been incredible and I really am not too happy about having to leave tomorrow morning, there have been these little hints throughout the break that show me that things are different. the meaning of home is different.

The truth is, I am almost 20 and for the past two weeks, I have been referring to Idaho as home way more than New Hampshire. When it comes down to it, my life is more in Idaho then it is here. School, friends, job, car, apartment. I'm living out there, not only in a physical sense, but in a emotional and mental sense as well. I'm living out there.

It's a weird realization, a sad one, but an almost happy one at the same time. I mean, I'm really growing up. I am really making my own choices and I really am becoming my own person. I'm really growing up.

But at the same time, that thought is scarier then anything else.

One thing is for certain, though. As I sit here in my sister's old room and look at all of my stuff everywhere, the cold wind is still howling outside my window and the snow is still blowing across my backyard and the fire is still smoldering in the wood stove in my living room and I know that I will always be a New England girl.