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I realize something when I look back at my life. The last time I truly lived at home was when I finished elementary school. That was the final moment when home was not just a place to return to, but the center of my daily life. After graduation, everything started to change.

Since secondary school, I have lived in a boarding school. At first, it felt strange to leave home at such a young age, but little by little, I became used to it. High school continued in the same way. Boarding life became my everyday reality, while home turned into something else — a place for holidays, for short visits, for quick reunions. I was no longer the child who lived in the house day by day. Instead, I became someone who passed through, like a guest in my own home.

It’s a bittersweet thought. Home is still there, with its familiar walls, smells, and sounds, but it is no longer the place where I spend most of my time. It has turned into a destination rather than a base. A place to visit, not the center of my everyday life. And maybe that is what growing up really means: carrying home in your heart, even when you no longer live inside it every day.

And tonight, as I write this, I realize it even more deeply. Because tonight is my last night here (again and again). Tomorrow I will leave again — leaving for study abroad, stepping into my final year. It feels heavy to say “last,” because it means an ending is near(next post). But it also feels precious, because I know these moments will never repeat in the same way. I don’t know what the future will bring, but for now, I am holding onto this night, this feeling of home, before I step out again into the wider world.

It turns out that after I graduated from elementary school, that was the last time I was truly a resident of my own home. From then on, I became more like someone who simply visits — a guest in the very house that once defined my daily life and…

see you here for a minute every day!