she could turn around.

I'm sitting on the floor, legs crossed, staring down two duffel bags (and I'm aware, yes, that I came home with one) and wondering if going home early from break was a good decision. I'll be headed back to a dorm room- an empty dorm room, on an empty floor, on an empty campus- tomorrow, and I'll be leaving the warmth, sans the lack of credible heat reaching my body, of my home, of knowing I can walk into my mom's room and knowing I can call the dog, and knowing I don't have to wake up at 6:30 AM to catch a bus away from what used to be my puzzle.

After my first few visits home, I was convinced I had become the somewhat misshapen puzzle piece to the small life I created for myself here. Things never felt quite right. They never 'clicked.' I enjoyed trips home, and I enjoyed reliving memories and building on old relationships, but I used to return to school knowing that there I was welcome to be the person I had become.

This trip home, however, was different.

I've only laid in my bed three times since I returned here on Saturday afternoon. I can remember each, and none felt the same as the Thanksgiving, Christmas, Fall Break trips home. None felt as exhausted. I can remember being up for hours on those trips back to the room I had grown up in. I spent those nights awake, with ichat on and my camera connected, with music downloading like crazy, with laughter erupting from my room as I watched movies, talked on ichat, and did everything else with a constant, virtual reminder of school constantly surfacing. Sometimes, I took phone calls. Other times, I videochatted. And when I wasn't doing that, I was talking about it. People just kept asking about it.

It's taken me a few trips home to realize exactly what it is. Maybe it was the way my mom took me shopping, big-time shopping like we used to do when I was younger and getting ready for September. Maybe it was the way we ordered out on Sunday as opposed to sitting around my Grandmother's table, where I would pick the meat out of my food, and maybe it was the way she still managed to cook me things I loved. Maybe it was watching my dog, who is currently recovering, hop onto my bed the way he used to when I was up writing papers and he had wandered out of my mom's room.

The truth is, I haven't felt this way since I left for school. I was always so excited to get my hands on more of that inebriated, beautifully broken, carefree life of college that I never bothered to try to be the girl I always was, try to stop being a stranger in a place that had once loved me.

Maybe it was the way, this time, I came home and I fit back into it. Despite the readers, the nose ring, the feminist books, the spring fashion issue, the attitude. Despite the new stories, and experiences. Despite the distant sound in my voice when people asked how DC was. Despite the lack of rushing around to make plans.

This time, home took me back the way I'd tried to be back for a year.

This time, I'm not sure if "home" was ever that dorm room with yellow sheets and mugs full of memories.

I think I know now what it's like to be at a crossroads, and the saddest part is that all I want to do is run.