About two weeks ago, I decided to make a phone call because I was having an oh-my-god-what-was-I-thinking crisis.

"Yes, I would like to book a flight from Philadelphia to Larnaca, Cyprus," I said in one breath to an extremely cheerful operator. "Do you have any available seats on the 18th, 19th or 20th of December?"

Cyprus, my home, is a dot of an island in the Mediterranean Sea, about 9,000 miles away. It is an island with at least nine months of sunshine, miles of beaches and where "winter" is a description of a season Cypriots don't really know the meaning.

A reply came from the operator after 10 minutes, which seemed like eternity.

"There are no available seats on those days. I'm sorry."

Desperation kicked in.

"How about any day?" I asked, putting on my best will-burst-in-tears-any-minute-now voice. There is no shame in begging, and I was willing to go all out.

I had two minutes of total bliss when the operator informed me I could be home for Christmas Day. Then, just as I was ready to get my suitcase out, the operator said she made a mistake. Apparently my open return ticket wasn't eligible for that particular flight. I wasn't going home after all. The operator had taken away my last shred of hope.

Of course this was entirely my fault. Even though I hated every airline with booked flights that could not accommodate me, I knew I was the one to blame. Three weeks is very short notice, and the sky-high prices were enough to ground me firmly back to reality -- I was going to spend winter break in the United States.

This was my original intention, and I had no second thoughts about it before Thanksgiving break. I had decided that this year I was going to try something different. I wanted to act a little more grown up. I wanted to declare myself more independent. Because, you know, being away at college on your own, in an entirely different time zone, on an entirely different continent, is not grown up enough.

My step toward (even more) maturity was based on one idea: not going home. I figured it was time to make the transition between spending Christmas with family to spending Christmas with friends.

This sounded like a great idea to me in August, September, October and almost all of November. Then, a friend of mine was nice enough to invite me to his house in South Carolina for Thanksgiving dinner. Even though we don't celebrate Thanksgiving in Cyprus, it reminded me that family-oriented holidays are well, you know, spent with the family. That's when it clicked: I missed my family terribly. The entire semester my head was clouded by stupid thoughts of making it on my own. Family? I had thought I was over that.

Well, er, not quite it seems, but evidently there's nothing I can do about that.

Despite changing my mind last minute, now I'm beginning to like the fact that this was my choice, and I think the grown-up thing to do is to stick with it, and make the most of it. After all, this was about me becoming more grown-up, right?

Excluding my little daylong post-Thanksgiving drama (after the operator burst my little hope bubble), I still feel ready to try something different this year. When I go back to Cyprus, I get tired of always being asked the same question (How is Pennsylvania?) and always giving the same answer (Oh, you know, cold); always going to the same clubs and coffee shops with people I have known forever.

It's time for a change. It's time to experience something new.

So this is the year of transition. So what if I couldn't find a last-minute flight home?

Even though I miss my family, it's time to take the next step and have Christmas with my friends -- my home away from home.