Thursday, March 28, 2024

Returning home has many disadvantages

For the last two and a half years of my life, I have lived without the aid of my parents. Next Thursday and for the three and a half weeks following it, I will live at home again.

Each time I return, I am reminded of the warmth home brings and the comfort my family gives me. But as I get older and experience more by myself, I get nervous and on edge before I return.

There will be rules.

I’ll probably have a curfew.

I won’t be able to eat Twizzlers and drink Mountain Dew for dinner.

My mom will make me guzzle a (very large) glass of skim milk at dinner.

I’ll have to clean up my room, or worse, do the dishes.

My sister and I will be best friends for three days before we start beating each other up. Most likely, I’ll return to MSU with bruises.

I’ll fight with my dad. It’s not that we disagree, it’s just the opposite - we’re the same person. And I believe I should be the center of attention at all times.

My nights of digital cable will be replaced with a sensible bedtime, flannel sheets and a kiss goodnight from Mom.

As much as I love to go home, much of me longs to live by myself during break, visiting home only for Christmas and weekends.

I love my solitude. Living alone has forced me to become a hermit. I seal my door up, unplug my phone and ignore knocks on my door. I can hear my friends sometimes, “Lindy, I know you’re in there, I can see your light is on.”

But when I go home, all this will end. Family noises will return to my life. I’ll spend much of my break listening to bickering (including a lot caused by me), my dad’s television blaring football until 4 a.m. and my mom clinking dishes together as she makes another batch of cookies.

Going home makes me anxious to be a child again. Everything I have learned to do by myself is forgotten when I enter my house. I no longer have the responsibility to do my laundry, feed myself three meals a day or any other of those little things we do daily that Mom takes care of at home.

All the adult qualities I possess are somehow taken from me by a supernatural force when I enter that house. I occasionally forget I’m visiting from college and experience teenage angst all over again.

Here, I despise the phone. But at home, I’ll spend three hours talking to friends while my dad hollers every 15 minutes, “Lindy, are you still on the phone? I have to get online. Lindy, are you even listening to me?”

Again, it will be like high school. I’ll pause, roll my eyes and think everything is, like, so ridiculous and I’m just so much better than that.

I won’t have friends to comfort me this break, either. Most of my friends have moved away, so I’ll have three weeks to hang out with three friends. When Mom and Dad have driven me into a frenzy because I can’t do something I very well think I should be allowed to do, I’ll have to sulk in my room.

But not all of Christmas will upset me. Actually, I should just tell all the truth now. I’ve been slightly deceitful. Going home is not a dark, snowy place with windchill factors. It’s Italy.

It’s going to take me 18 hours to get there, but at least I will get far away from East Lansing, if for only briefly.

For three and a half weeks, I’ll be 45 minutes from Venice, three minutes from real pizza and cappuccino that isn’t guaranteed “real Italian” because all of it just is. Plus, it will be a sunny 45 degrees and snow will be just a memory from the cold state I attend college in.

As I blankly studied this week, I was reminded going home isn’t all rules and regulations.

Winter break should be about family members and the warmth they give me. I should absorb every piece of them because as this year goes on, I will miss them more than I can even understand.

Going without my family for six months makes me appreciate my father yelling at me, or my mom turning off the light in my room as I fall asleep.

Even if I return to East Lansing in January with bruises on my arms from my sister’s powerful right-hand punch, it will all be worth it - because I can spend the rest of the year alone in my room.

Lindy O’Donnell, an outgoing graphic designer and incoming opinion editor, can be reached at odonne65@msu.edu.

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