every “i miss you steff” text i get makes me wanna go home. i’m not ashamed to admit how homesick i am, how the thought of leaving & going back to fsu crosses my mind at least three times a day, & how i regret coming to west point sometimes because i’m missing out on all the most special memories i would be making with my friends back home if i had stayed in tallahassee.
i live vicariously through my best friends & watch their life through the pictures posted on social media, videos sent to my snapchat, and facetime calls made while they’re out living the life we both used to live together, but, now, i watch in my barracks room. i have come to be more appreciative for facetime calls & my friends that facetime me; there is nothing more sentimental than my friends facetiming me to show me something i can’t experience physically, but still call because they want me to be apart of the moment. i chit chat with my friends that are over a thousand miles away on the phone, & for the time we talk, it reminds me of all the things i loved about being in my 20s.
sometimes i desperately miss my friends; i miss having the time to talk, food hunt together, & all the secret intimate moments that no one outside our circle know about that made our acquaintanceship into friendship. being homesick is one of the most fulfilling feelings a person could experience; when staying away feels hard, it just means you have that much more love waiting for you when you return. i know i’ll never be home again, at least not completely. pieces of me will stay home though, within the friends i love and the memories that live within the walls of every bar, class, & apartment we shared.
florida state’s first day of school is tomorrow & i won’t be apart of it. instead, i’ll be apart of the other end of storytelling with my best friends. i’ll sit and listen to all the things they did that day, all the people they interacted with, & all the things we both wish i was apart of. so, with every “i miss you steff” lives the versions of myself that got lucky enough to be made with the people i love the most; i will simmer in those feelings of nostalgia & reminiscent for just a bit longer. it took me a long time to realize that not everything in life is meant to stay-for better or for worse-and it reminded me that that version of myself will never exist again, so i'm thankful for the people that allowed me to slow down and give me time to enjoy her and enjoy her with them around.
to my friends back home, when i learn something amazing, you are still the one i want to share it with. i imagine that after time has passed, and we meet again at a bar of our choosing, the bartender will never have known that miles & miles had ever laid in between us for this long.
to my peers here at west point that are grieving their past life, that are desperately yearning to go home, & are privately hurting from the growing pains that being here has caused you: home misses you just as much as you miss them. home will never be the same because you are no longer there, & you will never be the same because home is not with you.
with all my love,
♡steff
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