Class, work, meetings, bed. Repeat.
My name is Eudora Linde and I am a college senior. I’m trying to pack as much as I can into my senior year before entering the “real world” while still maintaining my grades, being a positive leader with club involvement, holding a job as a waitress and keeping some sort of social life in my final weeks at Shippensburg University.
Living away from home at school has taught me a few things. I can cook something that resembles a meal, do my work when I need to, maintain a busy schedule and negotiate with the washer/dryer.
All of those things have contributed to the independence in my life that I have grown to love. I don’t really answer to anyone -- I check in with my roommates every so often if I don’t see them at home, but I don’t live by curfews or someone telling me that this really needs to get done.
I generally do not mind forgoing this newly discovered independence, however, for a two-hour trek down the Pennsylvania Turnpike, back home to a weekend in West Chester.
Home means I have a curfew and that I have to answer to someone other than my roommates. It also, however, means that I get to sleep in my familiar bed, take my family’s dog for a walk, eat something that is very different from my collegiate definition of a “meal,” and, on occasion, get someone else to do my laundry.
Whenever I need somewhere to go and/or to be with someone who has known me for what seems like forever, I can go home.
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Friday night I pulled into West Chester with about five text messages and two calls from my parents wanting to know where I was (two hours was apparently a long time to not hear from me). I met them for dinner in town and then walked around for a little bit -- wandering into some of West Chester’s boutiques.
It was, however, more than a night of just walking aimlessly around a town that I have known for over two decades. I was able to be in contact with someone who does not let me get away with anything -- people who know enough to tell me to “knock it off” -- to me that’s inherently invaluable.
Being home with my parents reinforced the idea that no matter where my career might lead me, no matter what country I might end up in or no matter what mishap-that-you-honestly-can’t-make-up moment happen, I can always come back home.
So hopefully, a year or two from now, when I’m not living at home anymore, I’ll remember this – especially if I’m having a particularly horrific day. I might not necessarily be able to get back to West Chester as quickly as I can now, but, for me, it would be good enough to know that home is still there -- that I can reach out and touch it whenever I need to.
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