Hi, my name is Vaibhavi Goyal, and welcome to Choose Fullness.

“Bye, I’m heading out for class,” I say as I put my backpack on.

“Okay, what time will you be back home?” my roommate asks.

I pause. Home? I didn’t know we were calling it that. It caught me off guard—not in a bad way, just in a way that made me realize I hadn’t thought about it. I remember standing there for a second longer than usual, wondering why the word felt so heavy coming from someone else. Did I say that too now? Has it really become that?

Home has always meant Ohio. The plain house in the suburbs. The pond out back. My family. The quiet comfort of everything being familiar. Home was never this dorm room with lofted beds, shared showers, and 800 other students living in the same building.

At first, I was so resistant to the idea of calling my college town “home.” I’d catch myself saying it by accident and feel a strange wave of guilt. This wasn’t home. Home was where I came from, not where I happened to be living now. I didn’t want to admit that this place might change me.

But slowly, it did. It happened quietly—in the small ways that routines shift without you noticing. When calling my mom on my walk back from the gym replaced our usual dinner table recaps. When Sonic slushie runs became Den Pop Fridays. When my favorite Scooter’s Coffee order started coming from Java House instead. When Saturday study sessions moved from Panera to the Honors building. Somewhere along the way, these small shifts started feeling less like temporary changes and more like real life. 

Psychology tells us that a sense of home forms through bonds—memories made, relationships built, familiar sights seen again and again. So as I started building my new routine, forming friendships, and creating memories in this town, maybe it was only natural that it started to feel like something more. But accepting it still felt like betrayal—like I was leaving behind the person I had always been.

It wasn’t until I let this new place change me that I realized something important: the version of me being shaped here wasn’t a stranger to my old self. I was just growing. And I needed this time away to learn things that I couldn’t have known before.

My new home taught me that connection is everything. And it’s not always some big, dramatic gesture. Sometimes, it’s simply someone making space for you in their day. That joy is often found in the little moments—in the walk to class with someone you love talking to, in the shared silence while studying, in the way compliments you and it genuinely makes your day.

I learned to be present. To stop focusing so much on what I needed to get done and instead pay attention to the people around me. To ask “How are you?” and actually care about the answer. 

That phrase showed up for me again and again this year. And it started to mean something different. 

I recently heard someone say, instead of asking “How are you?”, try asking “How are you coming in today?”. It opens the door for something more honest than the usual, “I’m good, how about you?”—and sometimes, that’s all someone needs. Because it’s not really about the words. It’s about making room for people. And when I think back on the best moments of this year, they weren’t planned or scheduled. They were created by presence.

I also learned that even when it doesn’t feel like it, you impact everyone around you. At the end of the year, someone very close to me told me that our friendship brought them closer to God. In that moment, all the noise—exam stress, move-out chaos, summer plans—faded. After she said that, I was just overwhelmed with gratitude. My faith is the most important part of who I am—and realizing that I could help someone grow in their own relationship with God meant everything to me. I never try to pressure others into sharing my beliefs, but I do try to reflect the love of God through how I show up—through patience, kindness, empathy. It’s something I work on constantly. Not perfectly, but intentionally.

Your energy—whether negative, tired, or bright—affects people. And that’s powerful. So be intentional. Choose friends who bring out the best in you. Be the person you want to become, even if you’re not there yet. Let your environment support your growth instead of shrinking yourself to fit inside it.

One of the most unexpected lessons my new home taught me is that inspiration can come from anywhere. This blog, for example, started because of a passing comment from a friend. He mentioned that he wrote poetry and I—someone who only wrote when I had to for school—was fascinated. When I asked how he got in the mindset to write, he claimed that my logical and organized approach to life would make it difficult for me to be creative. I felt challenged by this and it was something I thought about for days after.

I did try to emulate some of his creativity by trying poetry myself and while that was short lived, it sparked something else in me. I shifted to expressing myself through writing and narratives and when ideas came to mind, I wrote them down. And slowly, they started to come more often. I began writing more freely—not just for assignments, but for myself. About faith, productivity, gratitude, and all the moments in between. And that’s what Choose Fullness became: a space to dump my thoughts, explore meaning, and see what came out.

I never thought I could be a creative person. But now I know that creativity isn’t something you’re born with—it’s something you find when you make space for it.

My second post, “The Monday Theory,” came from a five-minute conversation with an upperclassman who probably doesn’t even remember it. He made one remark about his schedule and our contrasting agendas brought me a whole wave of thinking that productivity can actually be most ideal in conventionally unideal circumstances. 

That’s the thing about inspiration: it sneaks in when you’re not looking. One small comment can shift your whole mindset. So stay open. Look for it everywhere. And when it comes, write it down. It will come more often if you make room for it.

So yes—maybe home is Ohio. And maybe it’s also this little campus town. For a while, I felt like I had to choose—that calling one place home meant abandoning the other. But I’ve learned that home doesn’t have to be singular. It can stretch. It can expand to fit the new people, routines, and places that shape us. There’s something really beautiful about that. Home becomes layered—it holds where you came from, who you were, and who you’re becoming.

Sometimes home is a place. Sometimes it’s a feeling. Maybe it’s the same chair I’d always go to read my book. The walk from class to coffee. A Facetime with a friend you haven’t talked to in months. Maybe it’s both.

You can have more than one home. Your homes can be people. Your homes can be seasons of your life. Home isn’t just where you came from—it’s anywhere you choose to belong. The more you slow down, reflect, and embrace what’s already in front of you, the easier it becomes to recognize just how full it’s been all along.

So remember—your glass is full. Whether you see it that way is up to you.