It's about the time of year when people hop a plane, train, bus, and head home. Home is more of a concept than just a place where you can eat good food, sleep in a comfy bed, take showers (without flip flops), play with pets, and see faraway friends and loved ones. This holiday "home" is supposed to be a shared experience, especially among the collegiate community. It's a break from the pressures and expectations of school life. But not everyone can relate to the Hallmark images of the holiday season. And for some, the rigorous demands of a college education are nothing compared to the demands of home.
For some, to go home for Thanksgiving means learning, yet again, to wear your own flesh like a costume. To dress up for the occasion with an extra layer of protection and deceit.
The fact is, not everyone has a safe place to go. There are a number of reasons why that could be, maybe someone's family doesn't accept their gender identity, their sexual orientation, the person they're dating or the way they do their hair. Maybe going home would mean facing an abuser, an assaulter, the hungry memories, sharp-toothed and lying in wait. With around 18 years before college, there's a lot of time for bad things to happen, and maybe they happened to you.
Maybe you've moved recently, and home isn't a place you can go to anymore.
Maybe someone in your family has passed away recently. It might be home, but it won't be the same.
Maybe you don't have a home at all. In the most literal sense.
Maybe you live in a different country and you can't go home at all.
You are not obligated to be thankful for your loneliness or fear. You are not obligated to be thankful for people who have hurt you. You are not obligated to be thankful out of duty; love the people who love you, and that love you right. Be grateful for those who don't want to see you suffer. Thank the people who accept you, who always try to understand you, who try their best to be a home whenever you need it.
The holidays are supposed to be a break, but for some people they're rough. Sometimes you'd take the essays and the all-nighters and the post-weekend garbage stench just to save yourself from home, the place you're supposed to love to go. Or sometimes home is where you wish you were but it's exactly the place you can't get.
So I'm asking everyone who reads this to give some extra love and gratitude to your friends this upcoming week. Some of them might be uneasy about this time of year and the love you have to offer will be very well-received. But as you get ready to go home and enjoy yourself (if you will, or can, enjoy yourself) just remember that some of us look to the holidays with apprehension rather than excitement, and be careful of making assumptions about the situations of the people around you. So have yourself a Friendsgiving if that's what you need to do. Talk to the people you love no matter where you are, be that in a house that cannot welcome you or in your own dorm room, thousands of miles from where you want to be. Take care of yourself and if you have to, wait it out. You have people rooting for you.
And whenever possible, invite a friend to your home for Thanksgiving. Not only will it help them out, but it might take some heat off of you too.
