Every couple of months, U.Va. allows us to leave our monotonous lives as college students and go back home to the luxuries of our own rooms, the holiday cups at Starbucks, our moms’ — dad’s in my case — home cooking, and our high school friends without whom we thought we could never live. Who doesn’t love the holidays?
But when I came home, I was met with oh so many changes.
When my dad picked me up, I gave him the obligatory I-haven’t-seen-you-in-a-couple-of-months-so-I-have-to hug and began to express my excitement for the week ahead. I turned to look at him as I was driving, and he had his I-have-something-very-important-to-tell-you face and I got real nervous. He told me that he and my mom had decided not to do Thanksgiving dinner at our house. I nearly crashed the car. We have been celebrating Thanksgiving at our house for the past 21 years, and what made it worse was that I could no longer play the role of sous-chef and help make everything.
On the drive to our family friends’ house Thursday, I was gearing up for a non-traditional Thanksgiving, since they were from Mexico, but when I walked in I was pleasantly surprised. I no longer had to sit at the kids’ table, which was pretty much my permanent spot at my own house, and was instead welcome among the adults.
Maybe it was the fact that I’m 22, but I knew then that as Taylor Swift says, “everything will be all right.”
There was turkey, mashed potatoes and all the fixings, and the proverbial cherry on top was the fact they had tequila. I took a shot with everyone there, even my dad, and it made me think that this new experience I was having wasn’t something to be upset about, but something to embrace.
Life isn’t about structure and having everything be planned out. It is about meeting new people and doing things with those people that you never expected to do in a million years.
My parents decided they would be traveling to Chile this winter break, and I was perfectly fine with that. My mom even mentioned that she wanted to move back to Chile soon, and it didn’t phase me. She has done all she can for me, and now it is my time to go out on my own and spread my own wings — as cliché as that sounds.
Now, I went home expecting the same old things and got a surprise. Traditions are comforting and fun, but changing them — and meeting new people along the way — can be even better.
Al’s column runs biweekly Wednesdays. He can be reached at a.koroma@cavalierdaily.com.
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