As J-term comes to a close, so too does my time living on campus at Middlebury. This is not for any particular reason. I quite enjoy my senior housing down in Homestead on Weybridge Street. It combines many of the luxuries of dorm-life with a geographic separateness that’s often refreshing. The walk up to Proctor in the morning is always cold, but I like the briskness of 9 am in Vermont as trucks whizz by on their way out to the country.

Now I am off to a new home! My sixth and final room. I am moving with a few close friends to live at 2 Park Street in town, above a custom leather-shoes workshop that has given the space its colloquial name: Leatherworks. Leatherworks promises to be a nice change of pace as well as a nice lead-in to life after college. There is a patio and a clean kitchen and a big shower. We have to take out our own trash and keep the bathroom stocked with toilet paper. We’ll probably cook many of our own breakfasts. As I write this post from the comfort of my sofa in Homestead, I am feeling quite claustrophobic as boxes begin to tower in preparation for the big move. And then that will be it, and I’ll be out of here, and I’ll have moved on to a new chapter.

Thinking back on my tiny Allen double, my vaulted-ceilinged Coffrin single, my party-suite Palmer single, my upstairs Palmer double, and now my cozy room in Homestead, I realize how much I have changed in my four years. A wide-eyed and overly enthusiastic freshman Nathan lived in Allen. A hardworking student with a lot of ambition took over Coffrin. A back-from-abroad and determined-to-get-better-at-squash Nathan soaked up the drama of Palmer House as a junior. This semester I was a student of constitutional law, a Disney movie screener, and an active job-searcher. How will my Leatherworks months be defined? Which new version of myself awaits? I always feel a real connection to the space I occupy. “Home” is where the heart is, but I have managed to make all of these places home in one way or another. Each time I move I leave a little bit of myself behind. Each room is replete with memories that weave together like a tapestry of my college experiences. I love moving. A new place, new smells, new sounds in the morning, new visitors, a new view. Fresh, new, alive, like the spring.

Another adventure awaits!

PS Jill, awesome movie.