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When I go home, conversations feel careful. Like we’re all walking around the same thoughts without saying them out loud. I’m told I’ve changed, even when I don’t know exactly how to explain myself. The way I talk. The questions I ask. The pauses where I used to agree.
College didn’t change who I am—it just gave me words for things I always felt. It taught me how to question without immediately apologizing. How to think critically. How to see beyond what I grew up knowing while still honoring it. But those changes don’t always translate easily back home.
Explaining that feels harder than staying quiet. Every time I try, I worry it will sound like rejection or disrespect. So sometimes I choose silence instead. I nod. I smile. I become a softer version of myself, the one that fits more comfortably into familiar spaces.
It feels like I’m living two lives. One where I’m learning who I am, and another where I’m careful not to disrupt who my family thinks I should be. I don’t want to lose either version. I don’t want growth to feel like distance.
I love my family deeply. I carry them with me wherever I go. I just wish growing didn’t feel so much like leaving—and that becoming myself didn’t feel like something I had to do quietly.
