I was writing at a café about ten minutes from my home when my best friend looked up over her book at me and said, 

It took me a second, but only a second, to process what she meant. Leaving high school behind to become a (somewhat) autonomous adult in college was a huge step. It was a huge step for me, for my brother, for my best friend, and for so many other people I know. You’re out in the world and you have to learn how to live on your own in a new way, even if you considered yourself independent long before you left the nest. 

Then you come home and, suddenly, you’re back in the place you left. And often times, it feels like parts of your past self resurface: the friends you had in high school that might be strangers to you now, the places you used to eat dinner whose menus are unfamiliar now, the stores you once knew that now seem foreign. 

What my best friend said made me look down at my coffee, which I was drinking black. I never drank black coffee in high school. 

Being home meant doing new things in an old place, and I felt the weirdness. 

Being home meant forfeiting much of that independence I’ve gained in college.

Being home meant straddling the line between who I was three years ago and who I am now. It’s a feeling of being in-between. Balancing two different version of myself is a difficult situation to navigate. 

So how do you find middle ground? How do you decide where the happy medium is between present you and past you? How do you stand your ground while still having reference for the place that shaped you? 

****

I originally considered writing this as a satirical piece detailing “Summer Essentials,” but having those essentials be emotional baggage, etc etc. But I think a better way to handle it is to face it head-on. 

Being a halfway adult is a weird gray space to be in. Navigating the space between your independent self and the previous stage of your life is uncomfortable.

Like every other scenario in which you must draw boundaries or learn how to say no, being home for summer is difficult. Just in a less obvious way. 

I’m living at home in my old bedroom, but I know I have roommates and a new bedroom in Berkeley waiting for me. I like the water pressure in my childhood home shower better but I like the yellow color of the walls in the kitchen of my Berkeley apartment. 

More than that though, I’ve set boundaries for myself in relationships that I didn’t set before. I’ve learned how to handle my anxiety and keep it from hindering self-growth in a way II didn’t know three years ago. I’ve learned to say no to the things that are unhealthy for me and I know more firmly what I love and what is good for me. 

The amount of change I have undergone in the last three years is tremendous and I need to respect that even when I’m back home. 

I don’t know if there’s a remedy to the cognitive dissonance of being home for summer, but I think there’s a good framework with which to approach it. 

This halfway adulthood we sometimes experience may be preparing us for full autonomy. This might be the intermediate phase we must learn to negotiate in order to obtain the skills we need for the future versions of ourselves. If I’ve grown this much in only three years, I can’t even begin to imagine what the next 10 might look like, let alone the rest of my life. 

So, maybe we’re uncomfortable now so we may be (even a little) more comfortable later. 

And while that’s not necessarily the most reassuring thought, at least we can better manage these feelings of being in-between.

By Bella Townsend

UC Berkeley student, poetry enthusiast and firm believer in Taco Tuesday.