This summer I had an eye-opening experience. No, I didn't save any orphans or build any houses for underprivileged families. Actually, when you look at it that way, I had more of a prolonged-glance-around-and-notice-that-some-things-are-not-quite-the-same experience.
Returning home in May, to my tiny high school bedroom, I noticed that something just didn't feel the same. My first post-college summer was a relief, a whirlwind of catching up with friends I was only a year removed from, shopping at the mall filled with stores I couldn't dream of in Charlottesville and gorging on my mother's cooking.
But this was my third return to Maryland from Charlottesville, and more of my friends were getting jobs and internships in faraway places. Having my own apartment meant more bill-paying and less shopping and since becoming a vegetarian, Mother and I rarely see eye to eye on the food front.
I realized, after a short week at home, I missed Charlottesville. I probably spend about seven weeks at home out of 52, since my team is in season during Thanksgiving, Winter and Spring breaks.
During the summer we get four weeks or so off, and then it's back to Charlottesville for Summer Session classes. All this time away from home, and home was beginning to feel less like home.
There was a morning where I woke up, in my pink canopy bed - what can I say, I wanted to be a princess when I was 11 - when I was disoriented, and looked to my left for the huge pile of textbooks I keep next to me pretty much at all times, praying to learn by osmosis. I quickly realized I had no classes, and therefore no textbooks, and I was not in my apartment at school.
Charlottesville had usurped Maryland. Naturally, I would never reveal this to my mother, who revels in every minute I'm around. Weekends are filled with family cookouts and gatherings, and weeknights I am relegated to watching her make a dinner I cannot eat while we sum up our days. My story was usually the same: I woke up at noon, made a classy brunch of ramen and eggs, worked out and walked the dogs. Her story was often filled with the latest work gossip.
So while home is definitely a relief from the constant study, workout, eat, sleep, repeat schedule at school, there is a part of me that always misses my crazier routine. Probably not the waking up at 5 a.m. to workout, or the ensuing class until two o'clock, the never-ceasing craving to nap but knowing there is too much work to be done to actually give in. No, probably not those things. But I do miss talking with my roommates until far too late, class discussions that are actually interesting and not forced and walking through the breezeway on a sunny day and feeling like I run this place and Thomas Jefferson ain't got nothing on me. Everyone knows that last one, right?
After spending 45 weeks of the year there, Charlottesville has begun to crowd out my hometown as my place of residence. I have adjusted to the University. Going "home" is now just a very cheap, very dull vacation. Home will always be where the heart is, but I have to admit, my bed in my apartment is far more comfortable than the twin in princess land. Just, please, don't tell my mom.
Simone's column normally runs biweekly Thursdays. She can be reached at s.egwu@cavalierdaily.com.
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