Everyone has an idea of what home means to them. Being away at school, for me, home is always the spot on the drive back to my parents’ house when I start to think “Okay, getting close, I’ll be home soon.”
Growing up, it was expected that I would help my dad during the long summer days with haying, or branding calves, or checking cows. Admittedly, I grudgingly helped out and silently wished the sun would go down so we could go in and eat dinner. I never really appreciated the hard work it took to do everyday things, nor did I realize I was learning a lesson that I would carry with me in the years to come.
I’m sure my parents were aware that I wasn’t always happy helping all those years. When I was in high school, I had decided that never-would-I-ever come back home. I had convinced myself that I didn’t like where I came from and that I didn’t need to go back. My aspirations lay somewhere in the mountains, on my own ranch, building a new legacy with a family of my own.
It wasn’t until I came to college that I realized how good home truly was. It finally dawned on me that I had led a lifestyle that few of my peers could even relate to. Most of the people I met in college claimed to be from a rural background, but they didn’t know what it meant to actually work hard all day, every day, year round. And I was knowledgeable about every little aspect of a ranch just because I had been listening when my parents talked about it at the dinner table.
This realization led me to the epiphany that I didn’t want to live anywhere else than where I had grown up. I loved the ranch, and being able to see my family, and knowing that someday I could pass all of it down to my kids. No matter where this crazy life takes me, I now know that my heart belongs at home.
In college, it’s important to find that kind of place where you feel at home, since you most likely can’t be with your family as much. The College of Ag is the place on campus I have found that feels most like home. It has taken some time, but I have developed friendships and relationships with enough people within the college that I no longer feel as home sick as I did my freshman year. Going away from home can be scary, but not when you keep an open heart and mind and allow yourself to make a new, possibly temporary, home.