There is something rather blessed about returning home.
It’s 1:34 p.m., on a Wednesday and I’m still nestled in bed (with heating that actually works, so you know, I’m warm), staring out at the snow spotted field across from my house, and debating whether or not I want to shower and start my day. I could write more of my research paper….or I could bake…or I submit to gravity again and wind up on the couch with a book…the possibilities are endless.
The trip home–which usually takes 3 1/2-4 hours) took a whopping 6. This was partly due to a tire going flat (in the middle of a three-lane highway), but luckily because the threat of the “first big winter storm” was looming, we were all crawling along at a leisurely 15 mph. It had been an hour and we were barely out of the Rochester area. One woman honked at us, rolled down her window, and pointed. “Your tire blew out!” she said, repeating it loudly to make sure we understand. I gave her a thumbs up and a “Thank you”, and she let us move over to the side of the road.
“Goddammit,” Alex said, glancing back at our other passenger. “I’m sorry.”
We both assured her it was fine–I told her I would have rather had this happen now, in daylight, on a pretty busy highway, rather than at night on a back road close to home. Especially with there being three girls in the car.
When the roadside assistance came (thank goodness for Triple A), we unpacked the back of her car to get the spare tire, and then stood out on the side of the road, waiting. Alex suddenly cracked up.
“We’re those sad, miserable people on the side of the road!”
“I always wanted to be one of those,” I shot back, also starting to laugh.
Just three girls on the side of the road, clutching bags and suitcases, getting snowed on, cracking up, as three lanes of traffic inched by us, probably staring out the window for some roadside entertainment. We’re nutjobs. The poor girl we drove home had no idea what she was signing on for–Alex and I tend to exacerbate each other’s sarcastic nature.
(This stop also warranted us calling our parents. I called my dad first–he’s less excitable–and asked, “Do I have to call Mom??” in a tone reminiscent of my whiny sixteen year old days. He just laughed at me. “Ugh, fine.” I called Mom, who took it surprisingly well–even though I accidentally started out the conversation with, “So we’re stuck on the side of the road…”—soo, my interpersonal skills could use a little work. I think a lot of the leeway I’m getting has to do with the mentality of “You turn 21 in less than a month, you’re a college junior, and pretty much an adult, you can now drive, so there is literally nothing I can keep you from doing anymore, so make good choices, don’t get pregnant, and come home in one piece. I love you, love, Mom.”)
The other reason the trip took six hours was because we averaged 40 mph most of the way home. The first big winter storm thing had everyone pretty well freaked out–and while I was thankful everyone was driving cautiously and not like raging maniacs, it made for slow-moving traffic, and as we got closer to home, and the roads got slushier, we slowed down even more. This is not to say that there were not raging maniacs on the road. At one point, a frustrated Alex who was trying to monitor what two cars in front of her were doing, exclaimed, “I can only deal with one moron at a time!” Directing her frustration at the car on our left: “You have to wait your turn!” At any rate, I slogged up my driveway to my back door, dramatically flung open the door, and groaned, which was enough to send my parents flying off the couch with an exuberant, “YOU’RE HOME!”
And thus began vacation, with potatoes stuffed with feta and spinach, a big salad, a roaring fireplace, two cats curling up next to me, and an episode of NCIS: Los Angeles. The big cat had gotten a bath and a blow dry–both things, I was told, that he strongly objected to–and the little cat had gotten even fatter and more belligerent than the last time I saw him. He settled for rubbing his face all along mine and then burping on my lap to show how happy he was that I was home. Standard.
My favorite part of break is getting to come home and talk to my dad. We were up until 12:30 a.m., as he looked over my paper proposal, I explained two texts I had read this semester that I was making him read over break–Beloved, by Toni Morrison, and Gardens in the Dunes, by Leslie Marmon Silko–and we talked about professors (he teaches chemistry at SUNY Oneonta) and teaching methods and all the wonderful support and love I receive at my college. We talked about new initiatives that are starting at his college, and things that were happening at mine. When I think about it, we mostly talked about blessings and future plans.
It’s really easy to get overwhelmed at college, and I find myself submerged in that “Oh God oh God oh God what am I doing” mentality a lot. I’ve decided on grad school, but as my mom says, that opens up a whole different realm of difficulties and stress. And that’s okay, she tells me, it’s all part of growing. Says the woman who found out in Mexico that she was accepted to follow her dream–she got into a tiny nursing school and has been a nurse for 40 years. Says the woman who served in Cuba as a nurse with the military for a year, who ended up living in a drug-infested hollow in rural West Virginia, because she wanted to work with coal miners, and wasn’t taking any shit from anyone who thought they could tell a 5’2 young woman from Boston what to do. And says my father, who was a “disabled child” for most of his childhood and young adult life, who the doctors didn’t think would make it at birth, who beat the odds, who is one of the most fiercely intelligent people I know, who now holds a Ph.D in biochemistry, and has been teaching for thirty years. I come from a fearsome legacy of people who refuse to be overwhelmed.
They remind me to count my blessings, thank God, they say, for what you have. For the opportunities you’ve been provided with. Remember that you are always better than you think you are. Winter will be over soon. Come home.
So I am home, and I am thankful. I am thankful for my college education, for the professors there that love and push and challenge me, who serve as mentors and guides and inspiration, for the friends and support system I have there, for the memories and the struggles, too. I am thankful for my family, that they are healthy and there and loving and supportive. I am thankful for so much, because I really do have so much. I think every day, I’m going to start counting one thing I’m thankful for, just to remind myself, to put it back in perspective, that things are good. Things are going to be okay. There is always something to be thankful for.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
The Wanderer 