I feel like going home, but at the same time, I don’t
Having a month away from college presents a weird hiccup in the fluidity of your life. You take finals, say goodbye and then leave. For a month. With no responsibilities or exams, life is put on permanent pause. And you’re kind of stuck in this weird limbo in which you must revive home life and proceed totally independently of the existence you’ve worked to create at school. If you cling on too tightly to your college person and friends, you’ll tread too lightly through your month at home to make any memories. But of course you cannot surrender everything you’ve established at school. Consequently, you’re stuck for a month in a precarious balance between fantasy and reality, trying to determine the whole time which home represents which.
But that’s not how real life is (right?). It seems unrealistic that in any vocation one is able to step out of their workin’ boots for a month and into flip flops or running shoes and walk down a totally different path for a month or so. It seems like in real life, you have one world; you cannot have two, for that’d be selfish and unfair. But for some reason, when you’re 19, society graciously grants you two existences (and until we’re forced to braid them together), college breaks are the great divide between the two.
In school, breaks have always been advertised as the Savior of the Student, flirting with us most when school gets hard to cope with. This great change of scenery that will refresh, revive and rescue you from the thing you’ve grown to dislike: the classroom. And while it’s nice, it also gets us to count on respite instead of buckling down when things get dull or boring or turn hard. What’s the Holy Grail at the end of winter exams? Break. Going home. Christmas time. What’s the only thing pulling antsy third graders through standardized testing and being stuck learning subtraction in May? Summer vacation. Sleeping in. Playing in the pool.
What’s the result of this attitude: restlessness, laziness maybe? Is this why studying junior year is so common—because we’re bored of school and consider it a convenient opportunity for a change of scenery? I’m kind of fearful of growing up and expecting rewards (in the form of time off, nights and days of nothing, nights and days of something) when the going gets tough.
Humans crave breaks, of course. But there is something different in a weekend and an entire month of nothingness. And what being caught up in the craziness of life grooms us to crave (usually) is the nothingness. We feel like we’re entitled to nothingness because we’ve been working so hard.
There were so many wonderful things that happened this break. Long drives to waterfalls and funky diners in funky towns; chasing bunny, chasing shadows and chasing flights; London Bridge, Tower Bridge, Foresthill Bridge, Golden Gate Bridge; star gazing from the hot tub and Scrabble and indulging with Dynamo. And though it’s hard to keep the standard low when things are so great, I think it’s really important to be cognizant of the fact that we’re not entitled or deserving of anything on our breaks. We’re blessed, maybe, but not so super ourselves that less noteworthy events aren’t justified.
