Eng 1100 - Coming Home

Madisson Gilmore

English 1100- Web

Writing Project 1

Final Draft  

Coming Home

        As I’m driving down the winding streets through the neighborhood, I come to the cul-de-sac. I loop around, my headlights illuminating the familiar houses around me. This is the place I grew up. I am home. I turn off my car and breathe in deeply, sighing in relief. The drive has been long and tiresome, but being in my driveway, just a few steps away from my front door, is worth any amount of travel.

        As I open and close car doors, gathering my belongings to take inside, I can hear the dogs start to bark. I haven’t seen them in months and I wonder to myself if they will remember me as well as I remember them.

        My freshman year was not all that I’d hoped for. I was proud of my scholarships to an out of state four year university. I couldn’t wait to get out of my city and explore. I was going to make new friends and new memories and bring back stories to tell my family over holidays, or so I hoped. Instead, what happened to me was my worst fear about leaving for school; I was very homesick. While I sat in my dorm room, drowning in assignments and stress, I ached to be in my own bedroom. I obsessively called my parents, who were patient and reassuring as I cried over the phone and begged them to let me come home. I was lonely, scared and overwhelmed.

To me, leaving that school was the best thing I could have chosen to do.

Now, looking at my house, the way the lights glowed through the curtains in the windows, a feeling of comfort washed over me. There’s no place I’d rather be.

I slowly walk up the drive to the front door, my heart pounding fast with excitement. I cannot wait to hug my mom or to stay up late with my sister talking about all the things we’ve missed in each others lives. My key clicks in the lock and the door opens. I am bombarded with hugs and kisses from my sister, the dogs jump with excitement and I embrace the people I love most in the world.

The house smells just as it did before I moved. The scent is unique to my house and familiar. It is earthy and piney and sweet. I want to bottle it up and take it with me wherever I go. I turn away from my sister to my mother. She squeezes me tightly, commenting on how much I’ve changed.

        “You look thin,” she says. She always thinks I look thin, even when nothing has changed.

I make light of her comment, hoping she won’t focus too much on the ways I’ve changed. I’m afraid to tell her that homesickness turned to real sickness and I have stopped eating real meals. I am fragile and small and desperate for food that was cooked with love by her.