Will Geiger- My Place

This past weekend I had the opportunity to go home and see my family. I'm only a sophomore and I don't pay rent or anything yet so my real home is still the place I go in Herndon, VA when I'm not at school. When I got there on Friday it had been nearly a month since I'd stepped into my house. Long enough to be able to smell the aroma that is unique to ones own home. As I set foot through the door, my dogs, in a frenzy, leaped up at me in an effort to taste the new and interesting flavors of my skin. My sister, characteristically, doesn't say hi to me until I say hi to her first. My room (as instructed) is exactly the way I left it when I went off to school a month before: bed unmade, clothes on the ground, closet open. I don't know if this is the case for everyone, but being home is more relaxing to me than anything else I can think of. I belong there because it was built with me as a part of it. My mother even admits that (even when she doesn't miss me) it feels as if there's a hole in the household where my presence belongs.