Making our way to the final haul of the spring semester, VALLEY had a reflection moment during the end of our spring breaks. As we packed up our bags and headed for the road back to school, we realized our homes weren’t the only things being left behind.
Along with our family and childhood toys, a piece of ourselves remained tucked beneath the sheets of our beds. Who we are in our hometown, with our hometown friends and in a hometown setting swiftly fades away as the Beaver Stadium emblem glows abundantly in our eyes.
Growing up and watching Hannah Montana clearly had a lasting impact on us, as it seems we’re living a double life. Despite our double lives being absent of a “limo out front” and fame, it’s hard to deny that who we are at Penn State and at home are two completely different individuals.
Friendships
As a college student, the process of building bonds evokes a sense of familiarity to Kindergarten and the urgency to make completely new friends. The task of meeting people we connect with restarts, but at college the connections are built on different terms.
Our friends we’ve known growing up were typically met through sports, family friends or from being placed in the same classes several years in a row.
However, at college a pattern of similar formulas can’t be found to trace how everyone meets their friends. VALLEY seems to notice that college friends can be made in the most unexpected ways, such as seeing the same girl in the bathroom at your favorite bar.
The most conflicting contrast though is found when we register how our hometown friends know every part of ourselves; from the good to the bad and our deepest secrets, those friends have stuck with us through it all.
It’s not that our college friends are incapable of knowing the purest version of ourselves, but that everything before college is a faded memory. Our PSU friendships can’t joke about our past, in the same way the ones who remember our first heartbreaks can, and our hometown friends will only hear about our Saturday nights, yet never experience them.
Love Lives… or Situationships
Hometown relationships are a rite of passage, which in due time we deem as the cringiest part of our livelihoods. Since, our first loves or first let downs met us in times of growth, there’s no doubt we will never forget them. We hold onto the photos, the Valentine’s Day gifts and if you’re similar to us VALLEY folks… you still keep in touch with them too.
College relationships are an intense breed, built on a foundation of confusion along with the occasional tears. Dating at college is either made official or all the relationship tasks are implied, just without labels, but there is no in between.
When shifting back and forth between our knowledge of teenage love and what we’re searching for at college, it’s easy to believe that we know how to tackle the dating scene. Unfortunately, college creates routine for a multitude of people in one place all at one time. So, in the vast sea of fishes, finding your cup of tea isn’t as simple as it used to be.
Expectations
During our high school years, home was the place to complete the work that would lead to graduating high school, preparing us for our successful adult years. After we graduated and headed for college, home became the place where we take a brain break and give our minds a moment to settle into relaxation.
College became the destination where we are active students in a consistent grind mode to receive honorable grades. While absorbing the quality learning tools needed to excel in our intended fields of study.
For this reason, college is where we’re expected to academically shine and at home, we’re now expected to head back to our summer jobs or visit our grandparents. The at home to-do lists lack the daunting nature of what fills our agendas at college. Therefore, the college to hometown expectations can be the most demanding to alter amongst.
Though the drastic difference between who we are at home and at school is undeniable, it doesn’t mean one version is better than the other. It shows our ability to adapt to separate environments, which is admirable.
As Hannah Montana declared, “… changing can be scary, but it’s a part of growing up. It’s how we find out who we are and who we’re gonna be.”
Truth be told, expectations, love lives and friends will always change, but the goodness of our characters, we hold within, and the love we can share out into the world never will.
Have you felt the double life experience? If so, share with us on X @VALLEYmag!
