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So, yes, study abroad. It will change your life. It will broaden your horizons. It will *insert study abroad cliché statement here.* It’ll probably do all of those things.

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Going home — there’s nothing like it!

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The roads are the same. The buildings haven’t changed. Everything is familiar.

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Everything is exactly how you remember it…. So far.

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This means everything feels foreign again.

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Sometimes, when I feel the crunch of gravel under my wheels for the first time in months, I stop the car on the road.

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I don’t know about the rest of you, but there is something completely unnerving about being back in the house I grew up in.

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The thing about long distance relationships with your family is that you can easily put an exclamation point on a conversation even when it’s not quite over.

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Melting into mum’s arms as if I’m finally allowed to melt and as if I never grew up at all.

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Try to act cooler than you feel. Definitely don’t tell them how much you miss home, or that you also dread coming back to it every year; that type of internal conflict is too deep for catching-up chat.