For the first time since I’ve left for college, I’ll be going home for Thanksgiving this year. The past two years I was working sporting events on campus before and after Thanksgiving to get money so I wouldn’t need to ask my dad for any money. This year there isn’t any sporting events on campus which I’m using this opportunity to go home to New York for once. I don’t know how relaxing the break will be being that junior year is very demanding in terms of homework and big decisions including plans for the last summer in college and post graduate careers. As happy as I’ll be to get homemade, cultured food, I will have a lot on my mind at the dinner table including securing an internship for the summer, preparing for my immersion trip in Belize in January, and the ultimate worry of college: finals. Every time I’m home, my dad tries to get me to binge watch tv shows and movies that I missed while I was away even though I have assignments and deadlines to meet. Usually, I joke that my dorm room is my hermit shell where I retreat to do work, but this year I will actually be in my room a lot organizing and contemplating my future.
Now that I’m a junior I have noticed a big difference in friendships from home compared to college that’s been increasing as the years pass by. Being that mostly everyone from my high school went away for college across the United States, I hear from people I used to hang out with in high school less and have less stuff to relate with them being that we have completely different experiences at the institutions we attend which brings our conversations back to things in high school or at our current colleges. Meanwhile, the friendships I’ve made in college especially from certain groups I’m apart of forms this great bond where we can talk about sometimes heavy intellectual conversations, yet because time is ticking towards graduation I don’t know what will happen post graduation when I won’t see some or many of my peers in person either for a long time or ever again. When I graduated middle school, I learned that some friends are only here for a season while others are here for a reason which is when you see who are truly your friends after any significant change such as leaving or coming back from college. I don’t think I’ll have much time to relax this Thanksgiving because I’m going to be lost in my own thoughts over a lot of things as I’m doing work and having my soul food turkey dinner.