There is an indisputable joy to returning home for Thanksgiving Break. I’m sure we can all agree it has been a long and exhausting semester on the whole, and I, for one, am grateful for a long weekend away from schoolwork, a restful sleep in my own bed, showering without shoes, and water pressure that does not require that I wet one strand of hair at a time. Oh and my family. They’re cool too. But there is an unspoken yet omnipresent anxiety to returning to a town in which most of my social connections no longer exist. I’m going to get real with you for a second. I do not have many high school friends anymore. I hope this does not brand me as some small-town Unabomber sad sack, but in the three years since I graduated high school, much of what kept me and my secondary school pals in contact (physical proximity, physical proximity to weed, physical proximity to alcohol, and lack of physical proximity to anything else) has dissipated. It’s not tragic, it’s just life. (I am currently filled with the suspicious anxiety that the majority of you are reading this whilst surrounded by fifty-to-sixty close and upsettingly attractive high school friends. To you people I say, is there room for one more?) But I digress.
To those who, like me, have a hometown with family, a few pets, the best bagel shop in the country, but no high school reunion to return to: there are certain awkward interactions that this weekend is going to be spent trying to avoid. Upon entering any store or restaurant, you are probably going to run into 5-30 people who you were already trying to dodge when you were in high school. For example, this morning I went into my local bagel shop (I realize that bagels are a weirdly significant part of this story), and almost immediately made eye contact with what appeared to be about 10% of my graduating class. But I’m a big-shot college girl now so I did what any self-respecting Brown University student would do when we recognize someone we know: I averted my gaze, kept my head low, avoided social interaction by pretending to text, and ordered five times the amount of food one person could possibly consume.
Sure, you could smile politely, make nonsensical chit-chat, and maybe even try reconnecting with old friends. But that would mean showing up in public without the dog-hair covered sweatpants you’ve been sporting for the past week, and no one has enough laundry money for that. So, I guess my point is that you can go home again, but it’ll be soul-crushingly awkward, and will probably leave you catatonic from three too many bagels in your mom’s Toyota.
If you are someone I went to high school with and you have questions and/or concerns about what I chose to wear in public this morning, I can be reached at Emma_Starr@brown.edu. Good to see you! Hope you’re well!
Image via.
I read this post completely about the resemblance of latest and previous technologies, it’s
remarkable article.