Four years ago, when I was gearing up for my freshman year of college, I thought I had everything under control. When I laid everything I needed for college out on my bed, I was not afraid. When my mom helped me pack two massive duffels with clothes, chargers, books, cosmetics, brushes, hairbands, hats, shoes and enough K-Cup Pods to pollute a small island, I was not afraid. When my dad carried everything out to the car — when he placed the duffels alongside pillows, plastic storage bins, my guitar — I was not afraid. I was not afraid when we got in the car, when we left Massachusetts, when we passed through Connecticut, then New York, then New Jersey, then Delaware. When we saw “Maryland Welcomes You,” I was not afraid, nor was I afraid when I saw, stamped in concrete across the front of the Beach, “Johns Hopkins University.”
I was not afraid because I’d done this before. Not college, but being away from home. I went to sleep-away camp when I was in middle school, spending seven weeks every summer apart from my family. I had done a gap year after high school, moved to Banff, Alberta, for eight months to teach skiing at the local mountain during the day and wash dishes at a restaurant in town at night. I had lived without my parents. I had faced homesickness and won. I was independent, and I liked being that way.
So, it took me by surprise when, after my parents hugged me goodbye and left me to start my freshman year, I started to cry. I was alone in my AMR II dorm room — bed dressed up in the sheets I had picked out a few weeks ago, posters and pictures from home spread across the wall — crying. And, to be clear, I am not a crier. I felt a strange emptiness in my chest, like my heart was swiping at open air. I missed my parents so much it hurt. I felt so lost, so confused and so alone.
Of course, what I was experiencing was a classic spell of homesickness. And, like most homesickness, it passed. I met friends, started classes and, eventually, saw my AMR II dorm room as something like home. I adored my roommate, I adored my teachers, I adored farmers markets and Brody nights and Bird in Hand. I started texting my mom only a few times a week and calling her even less than that. I wasn’t afraid. I was back to being independent, so I thought I didn’t need her anymore.
Now, being “independent” and having a strong relationship with your family doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive. I love my family dearly. I love spending time with them, going home for winter and summer breaks, eating dinners, watching Top Chef on television. But, in my mind, I thought independence meant living in faraway, exciting places, in the absence of any attachments stagnating my freedom. I thought it required carving my own path, alone.
Four years later, I am a senior at Hopkins, preparing to graduate. I’m looking for what comes next. At first, I thought I should move somewhere I’ve never been — somewhere like Chicago, or maybe Los Angeles, or maybe Seattle. Somewhere new, fresh and foreign. Somewhere far away from home. Because that’s what independence is, right?
Then, when I was back in Massachusetts for winter break, I had a funny realization. I was sitting with my mom on the couch, re-watching an episode of Wheel of Time, when I felt calmness settle in my stomach, a fullness so unlike what I had felt in my AMR II dorm room that first day of freshman year. At that moment, I had no desire to ever leave Massachusetts again.
And why would I? My home and my family are familiar; they demand none of the growing pains, the frantic searching, the willing disorientation that comes with moving to new places. Don’t get me wrong, I have no aspirations to be a “living in her parents’ basement” trope, and I want to keep growing and pushing myself, but I do think I need to recontextualize what I mean by “independence.”
I feel like we too often tell ourselves that we are a failure if we return to where we came from, if we cherish the old over seeking the new. College graduates are supposed to “fly the nest,” “discover themselves” and “find their own place in the world.” And, in pursuit of this, we (or, at least, I) think this means we ought to leave behind everything that has brought us comfort and joy in search of some chimeric utopia of self-fashioning and new beginnings. I love Massachusetts; I love my family. Why should I run away from that?
Isabel Leonetti is from Newton, Mass. and is graduating with a degree in Public Health and Spanish. She is a former Copy Editor for The News-Letter.
