During October break, Yale students relaxed, caught up on work and spent time with friends and family. Some went home for a few days of rest, and many went on group trips. New York City and Boston topped the list of destinations, as evidenced by word of mouth and social media posts.
I spent the break in New Haven, recovering from a month-long bout of the Yale plague and going through restaurant and Netflix bucket lists with friends. I had my tiny Vandy double to myself after my roommate went home. I had it pretty good, considering that going home wasn’t really an option.
“You’re too sick,” my parents told me. “Don’t travel, don’t worry about us, just focus on getting better.”
To be honest, going home in October wasn’t terribly appealing. My parents live in Ann Arbor, Michigan, hardly a remote destination, but there’s never been a perfect balance between time, money and convenience. There aren’t many cheap flights that directly connect Connecticut and Michigan, so a trip to and from home entails juggling airline ticket prices, layovers and arrival and departure times; Sometimes, my itinerary gets very confusing. This fall, when I came back to campus, I had an eight-hour layover in Florida, of all places. Imagine flying all the way down from Michigan to Florida, only to fly all the way back up to Connecticut. Then there’s the train or $80 Uber from the airport, and that adds up to a full day of travel. Just thinking of planning another trip, I end up getting overwhelmed by all the details. Doing all that for a few days at home, just to do it all again to come back … I stayed in New Haven, and I have no regrets. I definitely had a good time, and the rest was good for me — I finally got over the Yague! — and then I started missing my parents. A lot.
People are starting to talk about the upcoming Thanksgiving break, and when they ask about my plans, it’s hard to give a firm answer. The last time my parents and I discussed it, my plans were to stay in New Haven until winter break. I was even considering going to NYC for a few days during Thanksgiving, but now that homesickness is starting to sink in, I’m not sure. Video calls aren’t really my family’s vibe, so we make regular calls instead. Those calls with my parents let me relax and reconnect with my family, but their emotional fulfillment starkly emphasizes the lack of physical, visual presence. No amount of remote communication could make up for jumping into my parents’ arms and talking with them face-to-face, driving for hours with the car radio filling the comfortable silence or wandering into their room for random, pointless conversation.
As I think about Thanksgiving, I consider that the biggest hurdle now that we have more time off is, ironically, schoolwork. With my Pre-Med courses, there is no set midterm period; Once you hit the first midterm, it’s midterm after midterm in a breakneck, final-stretch-sprint all the way until the finals come around. So looking at the upcoming break, I feel immensely conflicted. On one hand, I want to use the time to grind, but on the other hand, I miss my parents and want to see them, and I’m guilty that my desire to see my parents can’t instantly and overwhelmingly outweigh my need to focus on my academics.
Ideally, I could have my cake and eat it too; I could go home and hang out with my parents while studying here and there. But the part of me that needs to make everything as efficient as possible resists; It doesn’t see the point of spending so much time and money for a week at home that will pass by so quickly, if I am going home for winter break anyways. It also recognizes that I likely wouldn’t be able to focus as well at home.
I hate the mental gymnastics, the calculations my mind contorts itself through every time I think about my homesickness, and I wish I could let my emotions rule over my reason. I wish I could take the advice I would give someone else, and recognize that the time and money spent can be seen as a worthwhile investment for my emotional well-being. I can see that it is true, but still there’s something holding me back from going home. I can rationalize it all I want, but in the end I’m trapped in my own head, by my own restrictive reasoning.
If there’s someone else who feels similarly, I can only suggest that we try to let go of whatever it is that prioritizes our schoolwork above our overall emotional health. It’s one thing to call it a night before all your work for the day is done and let yourself catch an extra few hours of sleep. It’s another thing to not beat yourself up mentally after a bad midterm or essay score. Yet, it is another thing entirely to call it a week and take that much time off for yourself, to tell yourself — and believe it — that it’s for your own good.
Of course, even the above paragraph is an attempt to get myself to take a break, to take the money and time for myself and go see my family. Right now, typing this out at 4 a.m. on a Monday night, I don’t know how convincing I am. But for me, even getting my thoughts out on paper, manifesting this out of my mind, is the first step. Thanksgiving will have to see whether it’ll find me in New Haven or Ann Arbor when it rolls around in a couple weeks.