Every time a break is just within reach, I realize more and more that the amount of returning trips to Eastern I have are limited.

This realization deepens every time I think about how one of my roommates and best friends will be leaving for winter break but not making the same return I will be.

As every semester goes on and more friends and classmates graduate to move onto the real world, nostalgia creeps up closer behind me.

It is never easy to say goodbye.

Whether it is temporary or forever, that one word is not one that escapes our lips so easily.

Watching my friend prepare for graduation make me excited for the future she has waiting for her, but it also breaks my heart because she will no longer be down the hall from me.

There will be an empty bedroom in my house and there will be one less person who will wake up early with me and gossip about the events from the night before or share popcorn with me when I am trying to pull an all-nighter.

There will be one less person that reminds me of home.

It is simple: college is only a place.

Campus is only a place.

My house that I am renting this year is only a place. My room that I have decorated with photos, posters and art is still only a place even though it has pieces of the things that are familiar to me.

These places only become something more when I am there with the people who made somewhere so unfamiliar and scary feel like home.

The time we have in every stage of our life and place on this planet is temporary, but it is the people we meet, relationships we start with them and the memories we make with them that make these stages and places something more.

Every day I think about where I would be if I did not choose to go to Eastern and did not meet the people in my sorority, classes and jobs.

Every day I think about how I would not have these feelings of fullness and warmth in my heart without these people.

Although every year it does not get easier to see these people graduate and move on, the fullness and warmth in my heart do not dwindle.

The tears are happy, the memories are comforting and watching them start a new stage in their life is a reminder that there are only better things to come.

Carole Hodorowicz junior journalism major. She can be reached at 581-2812 or cdhodorowicz@eiu.edu.