This week, I had the pleasure of being poisoned by what I thought was my greatest ally in life: food. The onslaught of discomfort, diarrhea and a dire need for a non-cramping-stomach moment almost proved to be too much for me. I found myself wondering (in a very dramatic way,) “Why me?” After a period of self-reflection on the toilet, I can finally offer you all an answer.

You see, this encounter with the ol’ stomach grumbles was definitely a lesson in humility, moderation and (strangely) reassimilation into an old life. I returned home from college finally this week, finding myself in the arms of my parents yet again. New things had popped up all over the place: my dad had begun paddle-boarding regularly while I had been gone, a new train line that stopped two blocks from my house was finished and my dog had—somehow—managed to lose even more marbles since the last time I saw her.

But, despite all these good things happening, I found myself struggling with reentering how I interacted with my old friends. At Whitman, I just figured out my "tribe," my group of ride-or-dies, the people that I know I will be annoying the absolute heck out of until we all collectively die in a tragic-yet-funny event (tasteless joke alert). This group of first-years will be lodging in CoHo and in nearby places, so be aware and listen for when we are coming. However, the tribe that I established for myself here in Los Angeles had been progressing on without me, just as I had without them. This made my return an interesting collection of happy hug moments and conflicted, "What do I do here?" moments.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my friends. I consider them to be a part of my family. It just became evident that my body physically struggled with uprooting myself from a new life in Walla Walla and throwing myself into a life that moved on without me back at home. When I realized this, I was humbled. I am quite literally a big person with a big personality, so I don’t commonly find myself not the center of attention in a room. But, watching my friends interact around me, I realized that they too are big personalities that don’t depend on me to live their lives.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. This whole thing has sounded pretty narcissistic, what with me yammering on about how I am so awesome that I’m shocked that my friends could continue on without me. That’s not my point, honestly. I reflected on this subject because I needed to see that, yes, lives do have a tendency to revolve around each other, but if one of the lives is removed, whether permanently or not, then the other lives continue on. Revolutions don’t just stop; that’s not how physics designed them. Nor do they stop when that removed element returns. The planets merely keep moving with a new, familiar piece reinstated in the dance.

Truly, I am happy that I found myself in a food-poisoned state. Reflecting is not something that appears unprompted in one’s life that often, so the fact that I was literally stuck in my house for a whole day allowed me to take the time that I don’t usually give myself. (Also, Mercury is in retrograde and reflection comes from this point in time, just so you know. Don’t be worried if you had to take a step back in this period of time either. This time is all about one step back in order to take one step forward.)

P.S. The lesson in moderation is don’t eat so much at a friend’s graduation brunch that you make yourself sick! I forgot to mention that in the article.