After experiencing the museum, Montgomery felt different. My class was silent. Nobody cared to crack any jokes. The air even started to smell different — like rotting garbage, reminiscent of the Southern Magnolia that Billie Holiday sung about decades prior.
In your hometown, you can’t even go to the grocery store without running into someone who knows your mom. But on spring break? You’re just another face in the crowd of frat bros, beach bums and vacationers who will never cross your path again. What happens on the beach stays on the beach — or so they tell themselves.
Maybe I’ll wake up without an alarm, make a good breakfast, take a relaxing bath and tick off things from my spring break bucket list. Of course, there will be moments where I’ll wish I was home, but I’ll remind myself that I’ll be okay. And above all, I’ll take it one day at a time.
I’m worried that something similar might happen when I return from college. Instead of feeling comfortable and relieved, I’ll feel unfamiliar and awkward, like I’m staying at a friend’s house for a week before I return to Boston. I’ve often heard sayings such as “home is where the heart is,” but how am I supposed to call this new place “home” without the proper time to love it?
But growing is inevitable, regardless of where you are. We have this mentality that we must evolve or die, but evolving doesn’t mean changing your life dramatically. We evolve in little ways every day— even if it’s in the courage it takes to live at home.
The enrollment deposit to Boston University may have been a couple of hundred dollars, but the thrilling idea of going to school 1,000 miles away from home was priceless. An uneasy knot formed in my stomach almost as soon as I threw my cap in the air at my high school graduation and realized the reality of my college choice. Was I ready to move away from home? Could I handle being in an unknown city without family nearby? Am I strong enough to get through the hard times by myself?
For viewers of crime genres, these shows provide eerie, intense and thrilling feelings that are all too familiar. With the assistance of streaming platforms, obsessively binge-viewing these series’ becomes extremely convenient. It’s this convenience that pulled me into the world of cable crime television, and keeping away has proved to be a challenge of its own.
Anna Malaika Tubbs' spoke about her debut book "The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation" at a Boston Public Library conversation Tuesday. Her book highlights Alberta King, Louise Little and Berdis Baldwin, forgotten changemakers in U.S. history.
