If you would have asked me two weeks into the quarter whether or not I was homesick, my answer would’ve been a simple: “hell no”! If you asked me at week six, my response would have been tearful “you betcha”. I went home for Thanksgiving break back in week nine; and now, as we enter week eleven here at UCSB, I find myself at a bit of crossroads.
Going home for Thanksgiving break, was…… nice. While spending four days with my friends and family was a much needed break from the stress of fall quarter, being home came with its own stressors. As great as it was, I think we may romanticize what being home for the holidays is actually like. We miss the routines and familiarity of home, but when we get there, it’s different. As awesome as it is to have home-cooked meals, spend quality time with family, and have no responsibilities, there’s something a little unsettling about being home for the holidays.
To me, this discomfort can best be explained as the disruption of a groove. We get used to putting on our shower shoes, biking to class, and having dinner at DLG. We grow to love our bunk beds and look forward to going to Freebirds at midnight after a night out in IV. We, in the words of Justin Timberlake, let the groove get in. We do the same thing when we go back home for the holidays. However, the three weeks we have off is not nearly enough time to fall back into the old routines we miss from home, but it is just enough time to mess up the ones we have at school.
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Don’t get me wrong, I’m just as excited as the next person is to get home, raid our fully stocked fridge, go to all my favorite hometown spots, and jump into my bed. I just think that going home for the holidays isn’t always all that it’s cracked up to be. But hey, as long as I get my peppermint mocha on Christmas morning, everything will be alright.
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