American writer Thomas Wolfe said, “You can’t go home again.” But is that because the place has changed, or you have?

Two years ago, my high school class gathered at Gravelly Point to watch the sunrise hours before the start of our senior year. While the sun washed over the Potomac River, I watched the planes ascend from the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, counting down the months until August circled around again and I was the one on a plane leaving my hometown.

I spent most of my senior year biding my time until college, and more time during my freshman year at USC than I care to admit, waiting to go back home.

After high school, my friends spread out across the East Coast, always able to take an Amtrak train ride home for a weekend, which made me endlessly envious. 

Soon after moving into my first dorm building, I was lucky enough to meet one of my closest friends. She lived on the floor above mine and was a 10-minute drive away from my apartment in Arlington. Together, we waxed poetic about growing up in the D.C. metropolitan area, better known to its residents as the “DMV.”

The DMV holds much more than federal agencies. It is a melting pot of culture, diversity and immigrants. I live on the street that the Washington Post called a “world in a zip code,” with residents from over 125 countries. You can hear Spanish, Amharic and Arabic in every corner of the streets and eat food from Pakistan, Ethiopia, Bolivia and more. 

Last December, I flew home for the first time since I moved away for college, and soaked up every last bit of it. I visited museums, spent time with friends I hadn’t seen since the summer and wore my favorite winter coats I had left behind for L.A.’s perpetual sunshine.

When I returned to campus in January, I sat in the dining hall on a FaceTime call with my best friend Khadijah, who goes to school in New York City. Still reeling from the high of winter break, I indulged in imagining what it would be like to live on the East Coast again. So, I started filling out a transfer application for New York University.

Don’t get me wrong — I love USC. But I couldn’t help but see L.A. for everything it lacked: four seasons, my friends from home, efficient public transportation. Nobody walks in L.A., and I’ve never felt so conscious about not having a driver’s license.

Each time I go home, I notice something different. New stores and cafés have sprung where old favorites used to be, the Metrobus names and routes have changed, the Black Lives Matter Plaza on 16th Street is now destroyed, National Guard members line the streets of D.C., and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents instill fear in the residents of Mount Pleasant.

Maybe you can’t go home again. Not only because the idealized, nostalgic version of it is gone, but because you’re not the same person you were when you were there either.

Like many people, I have a bad habit of not appreciating the time I’m in until it’s over. When I finally get to where I want to be, I romanticize where I was — even if it wasn’t all that perfect. 

A lot has changed since I graduated high school. I’m no longer afraid to go to the movies alone or let people know what I’m really thinking. I push myself to chase after what I want, no matter how scary it seems. Most importantly, I’ve learned to slow down and appreciate where I’m at because the future will come whether I’m ready for it or not.

I spent most of the five-hour plane ride to the Dulles International Airport listening to “Au Pays du Cocaine” by Geese on rotation. Staring down through the clouds out of the plane window, Cameron Winter sang to me: “You can be free and still go home.”

Everything changes, from where we live to what we wish to do with our lives. It’s a cycle we’ll go through when we graduate from college and have to say goodbye to our friends, and for some of us, L.A., and start over again. 

If you’re lucky, committing to a college is the first major life decision you’re tasked with making.

Choosing USC is the best decision I ever made. I study what I’m passionate about, see artists perform on the Sunset Strip, in stadiums and in parks, live with my best friends and am surrounded by murals, culture and creativity in one of the greatest cities in the world. I never did send that transfer application to NYU. 

I used to hate change, and honestly, it still scares me. But I’ve learned to embrace it. 

Seasons change, so do we and so do our hometowns. Sometimes going home for a breather shows you how you outgrew it and reminds you exactly why you left, helping you fit into the home you built for yourself.