Friday, April 10, 1998
Going home
After being away for a period of time, going back home can
revert old habits, mean new beginnings
By Marie Blanchard
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
People always laugh when I tell them where I grew up. "Isn’t
Cambridge where you’re supposed to go for college?" they always
ask. Needless to say, growing up just a few feet away from both
Harvard and MIT and within the vicinity of another 400 colleges and
universities, I jumped at the chance to go West when I got my
acceptance letter from UCLA.
Yet when I agreed to move out to Los Angeles, I didn’t quite
realize how far I would be from home. It wasn’t until the plane
took off from the Boston airport that I realized I was moving 3,000
miles away to a place where I didn’t know a soul.
Since that moment, I’ve never regretted my decision.
But I do love going home. Aside from the fringe benefits (I’ll
never get my laundry as white as my mother) and the absence of
schoolwork and classes, seeing my family again makes me realize how
wonderful they all are.
When I walk through the front door of my house (the door still
groans loudly – my parents’ curfew and security device), the first
thing I always do is to inspect every room to look at what’s
changed. New paintings, different couches, a brush of paint in the
hallways. It’s as if I need to take in all the changes and adjust
accordingly to prevent any more surprises during the rest of the
vacation. My parents always look the same to me, although my
sisters never seem to stop growing.
What makes going home so strange is that I haven’t lived there
since I started college. Maybe a few weekends here and there, a
couple of longer weeks, but never for an extended period of time.
So, in a sense, I tend to regress into the person I was four years
ago. It’s as if all the maturing and independence I’ve gained in
college completely disappears. I’m no longer an adult; I’m my
parents’ dependent kid again.
While I was home last week, my parents kept asking me about my
plans post-June 21st. Exchange the word "homework" for "job" and
it’s like nothing has changed since eighth grade. But in a way,
it’s extremely reassuring. It’s like once I’ve stepped through that
creaky door, I don’t have any more problems or worries. I happily
relinquish all my independence (and the stress associated with it)
to my parents, knowing that I can relax while they nag and complain
and force me to do all the things I usually have to force myself to
do.
As I’m sure every graduating senior who’s been home in the last
few months can relate, too; the theme of this last week was "get a
job." My parents, in a very endearing way, seem to be completely
mystified that the Washington Post didn’t knock my door down with
offers of a $135,000-a-year reporting job once they got my
application. After being rejected from the top 10 newspapers in the
country (perhaps I was a little too ambitious) my parents began to
worry.
"Why don’t you call X and see if they still know Y who worked at
the Cambridge Chronicle a few years ago?" they asked. Yet the job
search within Massachusetts wasn’t a total disaster. After a Sunday
outing in Glouster (south of Boston) we came upon an imported
medieval castle where I was offered a summer job. The requirements?
To wear a Renaissance dress and conduct tours in French to
tourists. Oh, and for minimum wage. Maybe a Bachelor’s degree isn’t
as valuable as I’d originally thought …
I haven’t met any new people in Cambridge since I moved four
years ago, so my pool of friends is limited to those who stayed
around after high school. We still go out, and nothing really feels
different except that we can now drink legally instead of hanging
out in cafes.
But I’ve finally come to realize that we no longer have anything
in common. The common bond of high school is long dead and our
socializing seems more contrived and forced than sincere. There’s
the obligatory catch-up speech where we fill each other in on the
last six months, and after that … it just becomes polite
(superficial) conversation. It made me wonder if, over time and
distance, I might also lose all the friends I’ve made in
college.
Overall it was a great week, though it did border on the
nostalgic side. This is the last time I’ll come home as a
dependent, nothing-to-do university student. From now on, when I go
home I’ll be a full-fledged grown-up with real responsibilities,
new bills to pay and no more endless vacations for winter and
summer. And the reality is, with one of my sisters going to NYU
next September, this was probably one of the last times we’d all be
together in the same house for an extended period of time.Marie
Blanchard’s sister Giulia Blanchard (left) and a friend relax after
school.