Comfort of Home and the Holidays

Good morrow, afternoon, or whatever time you’re reading this, and welcome to the Freshman Chronicles, a place in the SPECTRUM where everyone gets the low down on college through the eyes of a freshman, but more specifically, the eyes of yours truly. 

Each week, I cover a new topic that has been living rent-free in my head and provide you with my unadulterated thoughts. This week, we will be going over the comfort that going home and being around family brings me.

I know that each of us comes from a different background with different home lives, so not everyone will be able to relate to this topic, but I hope that no matter who is reading this, you can find a little joy in this description of what is considered a healthy home environment in which I am so lucky to have.

For those of you who don’t know me or haven’t read an article of mine before, I come from a small town in North Dakota with a population of around four hundred people and grew up on a ranch in my family of eight, me being the oldest of six kids. 

With this information, it makes a lot more sense to me that I find family and community to be so important. It was a big change coming from a rural area where your neighbor is anyone who lives in a ten-mile vicinity to Fargo where I barely know twenty other people. I can tell you with confidence that I know at least fifty percent of my hometown by name. 

Anyway, being from such a small area, I find a lot of comfort in the people who are familiar and constants in my life.

The next thing you need to know about me in order to understand why I find home to be so comforting is that I am what is considered an ambivert. This means that I can switch between introvert and extrovert based on the situation or people I am surrounded by. 

I am not the kind of person who seeks out making new relationships or even having conversations with people I don’t know, but when I am around people I trust, that’s when the real me shows. This is where it makes sense that I would enjoy being home because when I am home, I am around people whom I am familiar and comfortable with, so I am “allowed” to be myself. 

Now that I have given you the run down on who I am and how that affects me, I’ll get to the actual topic of discussion: the comfort my family and home brings me.

The environment

Because of my large family, our household can get pretty loud. It was a big adaptation coming to college and having everything so quiet, and it might seem a little backward, but I found it hard to concentrate in the silence. 

Every time I do homework or am even just folding laundry, I make sure to have something playing in the background because as tacky as it sounds, the silence here is so loud.

My siblings

I know it sounds a little cheesy, but I really miss my built-in best friends. No matter how much I fight with them, I sincerely miss being able to walk around the house until I found someone to just be around. 

Walking by so many strangers every day has really made me realize how grateful I am for the people I do have. I genuinely miss all the inside jokes, chaos, and feeling of belonging that my siblings have always shared with me.

My parents

My relationship with my parents is one of the most important ones in my life. Yes, I may use them for things like laundry or groceries, but I also love the dynamic that has come out of my going to college. 

I feel like having that little bit of time with each other really showed me just how much I need and want them around. I enjoy all the conversations and humor I can have with them.

My physical house

  For me, my house has always been a place I cherished and found safe. Whether it was the fact that I could hide in my room when I needed a break or that the kitchen was always a flight of stairs away, my house is somewhere I can ignore the outside world. 

When I go home for the weekend, I like to make sure I have all my schoolwork done, so that I can just relax and ignore any of my outside responsibilities. 

Conclusion

Home can mean a variety of different things depending on the person, but for me, it equals a space where I feel most myself. I sincerely can’t remember a time when I didn’t have a good relationship with my family, but I know that once college was right around the corner, I got hit with the realization that I would never experience being at home with my family the same way I was then. 

This being said, I got a lot closer with my family in those months leading up to leaving for college which in turn made it a lot more difficult for me to say goodbye. After about a week, I realized that I was being a little dramatic because, if I really thought about it, I could go home whenever I want. 

Having to leave home was something I’ve been dreading since I became a senior in high school, but when I tell you how grateful I am for the fact that my parents made me go to college, I mean it. If I hadn’t come to college, I have a feeling that the relationships I value so much would be a lot more strained. 

I also know that I wouldn’t have realized just how good I had it. 

I am in no way bashing those who are still homesick because I definitely still experience that every once in a while, but if you stop thinking about how much you miss home and start thinking about why, it might bring you a little comfort.

When it comes to the approaching example of my getting to go home, I couldn’t be more excited! It’s only been about a week since I was last home, but there’s just something about the holidays, Thanksgiving specifically, that brings an extra bit of serotonin with it.

It probably has a little bit to do with the fact that I get almost an entire week at home without worrying about school, but I also think it might be that this is a time where I get to have my family all in one place with no distractions.

Besides the stress my mother is under when it comes to preparing food or how cranky my siblings will be the day after because they will have no energy, Thanksgiving is the ultimate family time experience.

I can’t wait to sit around a table with my entire family, enjoy delicious food, and have the best food coma of my life.

With that, I wish my fellow freshmen good luck and God’s speed.