settle down, it'll all be clear

i think that home can never be a singular place. i think that home is where you make it. i think home is memories, home is people, home is someone always welcoming you back to where you belong.

*

i returned to a summer beach house that i've been to four summers in a row now. slathering on sunscreen in a beach chair, riding bikes down lazy streets, eating ice cream on a bench outside at twilight, late night monopoly, drinking out of plastic cups on the beach watching the stars, sunset cruises and crab cakes for dinner, movie nights and falling asleep on the couch. i could have been doing it my whole life. this is a new family of mine but i feel just fine. i feel just fine.

*

i arrived again in london on the edge of september and it was like i had never left. the last time i came with one burden, and though i've long shed that one i came with others: the ghosts of all the people i've been carrying around since 2008. it was like every building to every stone held a memory, like there was a film over my vision reminding me of everything i thought i'd forgotten - every stupid joke, every 3am sidewalk, every conversation shared over cider, every late homework night, every best friend, every heart broken - and it was bittersweet because i'm not that girl anymore but there's a little part of me that desperately wants to be.

but somewhere along the way this time, we made new memories. different memories. i went to places i'd never been before (because london is infinite, and you could stay a thousand years and never do enough) and i began to realize that even though i'll never have the other london back, i'll get a new one every time i go. one night we sprinted to the london eye and i looked up at the lights in the big night sky as the wind streamed through my hair and i laughed at the sight of me and i thought, i could get used to this.

*

if you didn't go to notre dame, it's impossible to describe the way your stomach drops when you see the sign for exit 77 and catch a glimpse of the golden dome rising up from the trees in the distance. it's impossible to explain how your feet and your heart just know the way every time. it's impossible to stop the smile that spreads across your face as you walk through campus, passing familiar landmarks and familiar faces.

going back to notre dame is always something i think will be so transcendent, so mystical, so heartwrenching and bittersweet. and those reactions and feelings are true of a place like london, a place that felt like home, but a place that i could never fully know. with notre dame, it's not any of those things, because notre dame is not only home but also a place i know inside and out, like the back of my hand, like the inside of my soul. being back on campus isn't strange because it's a place i belong, plain and simple. why would it be strange if it's a place i'm supposed to be?

we sat on the steps of the dome waiting for the drumline to assemble at midnight. we planned our night at the backer just like any other night. we sang the songs and chanted the cheers and clapped our hands and yelled for our school to destroy the wolverines, please and thank you. we stood in a crowded line and danced in a crowded bar and swayed in a circle to the same songs they've been playing for years. and not for a second did it feel like we'd been away so long, even though when we're away it always feels like an eternity.

for the rest of the weekend we went tailgating and to the football game and rejoiced when we won and collapsed with exhaustion when we got back to our beds and went to basilica mass on sunday and cried over the hymns and took pictures on god quad and when we drove away i kept looking back even when we were long gone because of the hope that maybe the dome would be there, tiny but there, never fading in the distance because it never fades in my mind, not ever.

and these are the reasons i know notre dame will always be home - not everyone will understand it, but i hold it in my heart, and i'll always have that.

*

we drove nine hours to parkland and we settled into my old house like we had always been there all along.

my room had changed - furniture moved, furniture gone, new pictures on the walls, most of the decorations that made it my room were neatly stack in the closet on shelves. and still, it was my room, because it was changed but i was still there, just a little older, a little more mature. and i know i have a long way to go but in a bizarre way, seeing my room helped because it made me realize that it doesn't always have to stay the same for it to still be home. i don't have to stay exactly the same forever to still be me. memories live in these walls and they live in me too. i know i will always have a place here. goodbye is never forever.

*

we're leaving for pensacola again today. i'm always sad to leave here but i know that when i step into our apartment with all our ikea furniture and our pictures on the walls and our big tv and our little tiny kitchen and the dust and the life we're trying to build - when we get back there, i know we'll be home.