This past Wednesday, my grandfather took me shopping for a “college laptop.” This term has been haunting him since I received my acceptance letter from Simmons College in the middle of March. As we meandered through Best Buy’s fluorescent lights and khaki-wearing employees, I could tell from his peering eyes and tightlipped facade that he wasn’t thrilled to be there.

I grew up in a stereotypically Portuguese household where the family members, no matter the age, stayed close to their immediate relatives. Anyone who deviated from this norm wasn’t looked upon in a soft light. Uncles, aunts, and cousins infiltrated Sunday dinners. Siblings along with great-aunts inhabited trips to the mall. Everyone did everything together.

When my grandfather heard that I was deciding on going to a school in Boston, a little under a two hour drive from home, he immediately was skeptical of this choice. To him, going away from the family, from him, would be detrimental to my wellbeing. My mother and her brother stayed local, and later on my sisters did the same. Even my aunts and uncles who decided to go off on their own usually stayed within a reasonable driving distance from other family members so it wasn’t like they were really alone in the end. The world was a dark place and if you couldn’t fall back on blood, who could you fall back on?

I am the only one in my family who has chosen to go away for college and has decided that being in a city (much to my grandfather’s dismay), was of a bigger interest to me than staying close. Families like mine can have their ups and downs. It’s reassuring to know that there is always someone to listen to your apprehensions, however, there is always someone to pry and poke into things that you may want to keep private as well. Every emotion volleys back and forth. I am antsy to explore the world outside of the microcosm my loved ones have created and I’m also extremely comforted and grateful in the strength of my relationships from being so tight knit.

The thought of going on to an semi-independent life without my family being only a street over, is an adjustment so great I can’t even begin to wrap my brain around it properly. I try, nonetheless, to focus on the opportunity of venturing out and discovering who I am (despite loving my relatives, I just need, you know, the usual young adult soul-searching).

I didn’t find a computer during that hour peruse through Best Buy, mostly because of my own indecisiveness. I did, however, recognize that this new chapter in my life is not only an adjustment for myself, but for my family as well. In their eyes, I am a vulnerable human being untouched and unaware of the world around me. And I mean, hey, they’re not wrong. It also helped me learn that no matter what happens, I’m never entirely on my own when life just gets too hard. A positive in such a tumultuous time.