I’m a Wisconsinite, born and raised. In Ashland, I’m far away from that home.

This is a second home to me though. Here, I live a different life than I do in Wisconsin.

Before I continue, let me admit that this is not a sob story. I don’t want you to feel bad for me. I love this life.

The way that these lives are set up for me is much different than most here at AU. Every weekend, students leave in droves to head to their respective hometowns.

Those travellers haven’t accepted a college life as another life altogether. They still leave every weekend to keep that hometown life alive.

It’s not bad to keep friends at home and it isn’t bad to miss it. The way that I’ve established my lives, I never miss home though.

Being 500 miles from my hometown, it’s been fairly easy to establish a second life here. There is exactly one person in Ashland that I come into contact with in Wisconsin.

Almost everything about my college life is independent of and isolated from my Wisconsin life.

I’m not cold-hearted, though. That’s not why I don’t miss home.

To be brutally honest, there isn’t anything in Ashland that reminds me of Wisconsin.

The landscape’s flatness in Ashland is starkly contrasted by the hills of southeastern Wisconsin. The temperature in Ashland is routinely 10 degrees higher than in Wisconsin.

My hometown is a sparsely populated suburban community and Ashland is a pseudo-city with a heavy Amish presence.

The differences don’t stop. Similarities are hard to find.

A few days ago for the first time that I can remember at AU – I was reminded of home. I saw what seemed to be a mirror image of my car at home (a late 1990s maroon Chevy Blazer) driving down Claremont Avenue.

For that brief moment, I had to suppress my reminiscing. I fear for the day that I miss home, because I’m worried that day will be the day that my bold line between this college life and that home life becomes finer (or even blurred).

I like having this definition because it’s easy. It allowed me to cut ties (or let them die in time) with people at home. Every now and then, I’ll chat with a high school friend on Facebook but even the frequency of that decreases as time passes.

While it may not be hard, this is my safety strategy.

Someday, I may regret it but the simplicity of maintaining these separate lives makes it all worth it right now.