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Leaving home has been the hardest aspect of transitioning to college for me for many reasons, many of which I never forsaw, but have popped up over the course the semester.

I have always been really close to my mom, and over the years I feel like our relationship has actually become a bond mirroring that of a best friend. And in a way, moving away from home and into college has sometimes put strains on this relationship. At the beginning of the semester, I called every chance I had to talk to her, and basically keep her up-to-date with every minor detail of my life at Bryn Mawr. As time passed however, and work began to catch on, and I began to make many friends in classes, around campus, and in the dorm, I felt like I was calling less and less often. I felt like work at college was overtaking my ability and time to talk to my mom. Obviously, our relationship felt a little bit different, as though we had too much to catch up on whenever we did talk and I guess we just decided to stick to simple conversations.

Aside from this, it's been hard to be away because I come from a pretty big family, my immediate family of five and my grandparents from both sides. Like any family, there are problems thta go on at home: someone not passing his classes, someone who wants to be a freelance musician for a living when our parents see no future in that, someone who gets really sick and needs to go to the hospital. Whenever even the smallest thing happens at home, I feel like it is my responsibility to be there, to be of some help to fix that problem. Instead, I am sitting an hour and a half away-- close enough to feel like I need to go back and do something, but just far enough that I can't.

For these reasons, I feel like I've, in a way, become part of the Bryn Mawr bubble to the point of being so detached from the rest of my family. At the same time, though, I have come across so many moments when I wish I could just return home and help fix whatever is broken. In light of this, I hope that Bryn Mawr can comfortably be my home away from home, but that I never get so comfortable here that I feel a loosening tie to my family and home in New Jersey and a new tie to Bryn Mawr, in its place.