It’s a brand new year — brand new you, brand new haircut, and brand new major for anyone who decided to make a life-changing switch of studies. Yet during our winter break, we tend to remind ourselves something valuable that will never return, our ignorantly blissful childhood (especially a month long one).
Throughout our busy college year of classes, exams, work, internships, socializing, and experimenting, uh, recreational fun, we forget our child selves. Life throws us these curve balls, seemingly Herculean obstacles that it takes a home cooked meals to remind us how beautiful youth was to us.
Some of us had it better than others; nonetheless, we have family that we are thankful for giving us the opportunity to life a life privileged enough to pursue an higher education. You flashback to your teen year and wonder how is that we took the small things our families did for us. The rides to school, to practices, the unlimited food in the pantry/fridge, the clean, folded laundry ready in your room, or something along those lines. No one will use that much effort to comfort you and your well-being more than your parents. Sometimes actions speak pretty loudly, and so does love.
Your family’s love can often be forgotten from the blur of adulthood like that cooked meal they make for you. It’s amazing how much love your mother’s/father’s cooking overwhelms you with the fumes of spices, ingredients of dedication involved in making that meal for you. It is not recognized before you leave home, but it lingers when you live off of ramen cups months straight.
Thank your parents, guardians, influential figure in the form of a wise elderly man in a bathrobe who happens to be your neighbor for maintaining as much innocence and carefree childhood they could have possibly have.
Why were we in such a rush to grow up? To do grown up things? The nineties sitcoms made adult so easy! We were sadly mistaken: adulthood doesn't looked like hanging out with your “diverse” friends at the local coffee shop.
Now you’re out in the world knowing the derivative of “e to the x power” but not understand how to file your taxes or no clue how to scrub the mildew off your bathroom wall. Your childhood self should see you now, wishing that they never grow up. Peter Pan was not lying, your were lying to yourself.
It’s okay to miss home, miss your family. It’s okay to miss childhood. People have this front of being completely secure fending for themselves in their emerging adulthood and some genuinely do. But I bet the rest of them is missing home no matter how much of their sh*t they have together.
Next time you're feeling homesick whether it’s on campus, studying abroad, or just away from your family, remember that you shouldn't feel ashamed to miss your home.
Sheetal Tadiparty
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