The Twenty Year Itch

My 20th birthday is fast approaching. I am not entirely sure how I feel about that. Turning 18 and going to college felt like steps towards adulthood, but not all the way. Being in my twenties, however, is indisputably adulthood. As I look forward to college in my twenties, I also look back at my teen years and childhood. The military played a huge role in my childhood - where we lived, when my dad was home, how often we moved… It also helped to shape me into who I am.

My dad’s retirement ceremony was on the same day I graduated from high school. Convenient for our out-of-town guests and neatly marking the end of childhood. Both my parents still work for the Army, and I still have a few more years of using the GI Bill and Tricare, but my life is no longer actively impacted by the Army. It’s now spring of my sophomore year – around the time my family would be waiting to find out our next assignment – but I am not even halfway through my time at Drexel. For the first time in my life, I'll spend four consecutive years in one place.

I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel that itch under my skin. It’s strongest when I’m walking back from grabbing groceries. After a year and a half, with a switch between dorms, things feel stale. It’s not that I don’t like catching a glimpse of Center City as I walk back from Giant or enjoy finding a spot in the quad on the first nice day of the year. However, I am so used to achieving familiarity with a place, sometime in year two, and then…it’s gone. Or, more accurately, I’m gone - ready to start the cycle anew.

"Is moving easier now that you're older?" "Well, now I can't fit in the boxes anymore."

Being a rising junior means (finally) being able to escape the dorms and university-affiliated housing. As I begin my apartment hunt, the question is: How far off-campus do I want to be? There are some apartments located right across the street from my freshman-year dorm. It’s a great location, near some green space and close to academic buildings, but I am also tempted to go somewhere new-ish. Still within walking distance of campus, but maybe across the river into Center City, or just a couple blocks further west.

My appreciation for my mom’s skill in finding us a good place to live, quickly and sometimes entirely remotely, is ever-increasing. There’s pressure involved in finding the place that is just right, especially since this will be my first grown-up apartment. It’ll be my home for my last two years of college. In many ways, it’s a statement about what I want my life to look like. Can I commit to getting up and out the door for a walk to class across the river? Am I going to the farmer’s market every weekend to get produce? It’s a strange feeling, to realize just how much control I now have over my life. I can ask the questions and answer them instead of waiting for the Army to decide.

Perhaps the hardest question to answer is whether I want to stay or go after graduation. There are no guarantees in applying to jobs or graduate programs, but I can still try to tilt the odds. After four years in Philly, will I have lost the itch? Will it have become a home that I don’t want to leave? Or will the possibilities of going somewhere new pull me away? I know that I can handle moving to a different state or even a different country. It’s how the Army raised me, after all.

As I look back on my childhood, I am trying to decide what parts of my military upbringing I want to keep. I am grateful that I was able to see so much of the world as a child. Even though I am not interested in joining the military, I can still follow its ideals of service and discipline. I have been privileged to be a part of incredible, unique communities, including Bloom. I’m not sure yet whether I want to keep the two-year itch. Maybe that isn’t up to the 20-year-old me. Maybe it is up to a much younger Faith to decide when we can stop searching for a home.