As a young woman, I have been blessed with parents whom are still together, happily in love and involved with my life just as much as they are involved with their own, yet my relationship with my parents never became this way until I began my journey in college. I have always been a little different than most people are. I have always seemed a little off when it came to my perspective on my life and the things around me in it, and I was always vastly different from my mother and father when it came to our thought process on many things.
I come from a strict family, a father with a military background from his father, and a mother with a military background from her father. Our age also tells a tale beyond the time it is told. I have parents that are in both their early and late 50’s, meaning that the way we were raised and our experiences in the current world are way different from each other. My father was raised in a time of segregation, working for every dime you gave even if meant breaking your back for it, and my mother having an air force background which made her grow up jumping from base to base. I, however, grew up in a different environment.
I am from Ashburn, Virginia which is a suburb based area and the richest county in the United States. I mention that point to admit that all though I am from there, I am not from money and my parents worked for everything that we have established. I did not grow up during segregation, but I did grow up in an area dedicated to silent and “lowkey” racism. Moreover, I grew up earning everything while other kids had things handed to them like candy… but back to the original point of this story. I read an article topic discussing how much closer people become with their parents when they no longer live with each other, and it brought all of this to mind because it is incredibly accurate. My mother and I (who is most likely reading this, because she keeps up with everything I do in school) butt heads all the time. I am big on astrology, I am a Leo and she is a Virgo. While we are similar in many ways, we are different as well. My mother is like my twin, so when we argue, it gets bad, because we handle arguments just the same (big, dramatic and explosive beyond repair).
As a senior in high school, I remember counting down the precious days until I could leave home and get away from everything I went through and experienced. Now I spend every day wishing I could have those days back. When I came off to school, a serious of unfortunate events (favorite book by the way) occurred with me that brought beyond closer to my family. I would begin speaking to them every day, even though in high school I was comfortable barely speaking to them at all. Although I’m an introvert, so I enjoy spending time alone regardless. However, this story is not entirely about me.
To the college student reading this and realizing that this is possibly your situation, that’s okay, pick up the phone and call your parents and tell them you love them. Send your parents a bookstore card or even just message them something good that happened with your day, it makes all the difference, it changes every factor in between you and them. To the college student who reads this and feels that it doesn’t apply to them due to a poor family dynamic, that is okay too. Not everyone has both of their parents in their lives or even wants them to be a part of their lives and this article is not to belittle or make people feel bad in any possible nature for that being the case. Although having a relationship with your immediate family is an amazing thing, having a happy, self-love relationship with your own mental/friendship/relationship states is just as imperative.
I try to keep my stories personal, I enjoy writing that has fellow students walk up to me and tell me how much they can relate to my story or how reading my stories benefited them. So this week, I want to know, did you grow closer to your parents in college? Did you become more independent? Did this article make you want to pick up and talk to your relatives? If so I’m glad that in any type of way, my writing made you think for yourself and about yourself. As mental health day has recently passed and I try to include this in most of my work, love yourself, love your family, and live a healthy existence with them because you only have two pairs of biological parents, value them.