It’s finally November. As I get back my midterms and papers, and this year even drop that stupid class, my walk becomes heavier and I just can’t wait for Thanksgiving break. My freshman year Thanksgiving break was the beacon of light that kept me going I couldn’t wait to return to my old life, my old bed, my car, my huge closet. I even missed some of my superficial high school bonds. Home was a return to the life that I was so ready to leave behind since my junior year of high school. And for four days, I was the person that I was in high school. Whoever that was.
My mother, father and sister were all waiting patiently at the airport as I walked off the plane. They encompassed me and swept me off to my grandmother’s it was as if I never left. But that was the last time I would go home to the family that I had known forever. The problem with college is that we all come here and live our lives and forget that life at home goes on without us.
It seemed that as soon as I really started to enjoy myself while at school, life at home started changing. And it happened to a lot of my friends as well. Parents divorced. Families moved. Grandparents died.
When you are surrounded by change, and you see it everyday, you just take it all in. It never enters your mind that you might have to adjust. Then you go away to college and it’s completely different. Since I moved away to school I lost my father and two remaining grandparents. My aunt moved to Queens with a man I had met twice. Houses that had been second homes to me belonged to strangers.
And then there comes the biggest adjustment. My mother is dating. A couple of my friends are dealing with this adjustment. We share tips on how to act. Two years ago when I was a little freshman, I never in my wildest dreams imagined that I’d be going home this Thanksgiving to meet my mother’s boyfriend. And after that I have to meet my sister’s boyfriend. Suddenly Thanksgiving isn’t going to be me sitting on my couch playing with my dog.
The self-centeredness that is college life doesn’t seem to mesh with having a parent date. And the entire concept of having a parent date is alien, especially when life rivaled that of the Cleavers’ pre-college. When I watched my friend’s parents date in high school, there was always an effort made by the couple to include the child in some way. Of course these efforts weren’t always well received, but they were efforts nonetheless. The trouble with being removed from it all is that the relationship develops without any interaction from the forgotten college student. Suddenly a strange man is stopping by unannounced and then it hits you, you are the stranger in your house.
And it doesn’t just happen if your parents start dating. After your first trip home, things change. One of my friends’ parents converted her room into an exercise room. Another went home expecting home cooked meals only to hear ‘I don’t have time to cook anymore, it’s cereal or be hungry.’
We all revel in our independence. I recently talked to my mother about moving to an off-campus apartment, trying to convince her I was ready. She was reluctant. But we all beg for independence, we want nothing more than to stand on our own. The trouble is that we get it. Families send us off letting us do whatever we want, and they carry on their own lives. In the intermediate fog of college years, as much as I want to be the adult, I’ve always envisioned myself being I can’t help but want the stability and comfort that was my home life. But life in New York doesn’t ‘pause’ while I’m in Boston, and I can’t walk off the plane and hit ‘play’ even if that is what I expected to do. And it seems like even those who are most detached from their families want that to happen.
This carries over to friends from home, too. This summer I was walking into a restaurant when I ran into a girl from high school. As we were catching up she said, ‘You have to see my baby!’ And she brought me over to the stroller manned by her mother. I was in shock.
In a perfect world we could choose what we want to change and what we want to keep the same. The things that are comforting would always be there. We could move forward without hesitation, because we’d always be able to fall back into our old ways when classes got too hard, or life was too stressful. It’s easy to hold onto the past, and reach for the future, but embracing the future involves letting go of the past, no matter how magical it was.
This is by no means the biggest issue in the world and we have no choice. We watch our lives change like passing scenery on a train, even if it happens while sitting on the couch with the dog.
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