Jessai Flores

Going into Thanksgiving break I didn’t expect to end up in a hospital emergency ward… twice.

Like everyone else, I’d really looked forward to the break — a pause from readings and essays and dining hall food. However, my week ended up feeling more like an odyssey than time off, spanning three states, four beds and two hospital visits. 

It began in Cambridge for the Yale-Harvard game, where I was staying with a high school friend. As we were traversing the rain stained streets of Boston, a wave of surrealness washed over me. Only a few months ago the two of us had been seniors in high school, running into each other at the 24-hour bakery that Vancouver kids frequent. Now, here we were in a new country and new city, catching the T to our dinner plans like we’d done it a thousand times. It felt thrillingly adult and achingly unfamiliar — a feeling that loomed over the rest of my break.

After the game, my plans unraveled. When my housing plans fell through, I scrambled to find a last minute place to stay. Thankfully, a Yale friend offered to share her hotel room with a few of us. Not 10 minutes into getting to the hotel room, one of my friends revealed that her piercing had become painfully infected. So, that Saturday night I found myself calling an Uber to the Cambridge Health Alliance Emergency room instead of an MIT frat. When I ventured out to find us dinner the only thing open and within walking distance was a Whole Foods. So, lo and behold I found myself trudging through the cold streets of suburban Cambridge clutching an entire rotisserie chicken that we shared in the hospital waiting room. 

The next morning my roommate and I headed to his hometown of Larchmont, New York. I was welcomed with warmth by the friends and family that he’d told me so much about throughout the semester. I was happy to see my roommate revel in the comforts of going home and grateful to be able to share in that, but I also was reminded how far away I was from mine. For all the comforting familiarity, there was an uncanny sense of otherness. A cozy bed that wasn’t mine. Wonderful dogs that weren’t mine. Caring friends that weren’t mine. On my last day there, he tested what I’d learnt about Larchmont by making me navigate his city. I feebly tried to recognize his landmarks, the elementary school he and his friends volunteered at, the bridge where local teens would hangout, the places that made Larchmont his hometown. I couldn’t help but feel like I was living in someone else’s memories, a sense that made me feel both welcomed and all too alien.  

By Wednesday I was on the move again, taking a series of trains and buses to get to New Jersey for Thanksgiving with my extended family. I was nervous to have dinner with a side of my family I barely knew, but I was quickly welcomed into the fold. My first American Thanksgiving was both foreign and familiar all at once. Between passing the turkey and stuffing around the table, I got to hear about family drama and share in traditions that were second nature to them, like I’d been written into a story that had begun long before I arrived.

Finally it was Friday and I was at the end of my Thanksgiving odyssey. I was in Grand Central, a few steps away from boarding the train to New Haven, heading down the stairs to the platform when I heard a sudden “SNAP!” I felt a shooting pain in my leg and looked down to see I’d missed a stair and my ankle was now bent at a 90 degree angle. After hobbling my last few steps to salvation I crashed onto the first seat I could find. 

The last time I sprained my ankle was in grade three. I still remember crying as my dad carried me into the emergency room and my week of grade school fame parading around in crutches. This time, there was no one to carry me and nothing glamorous about walking to Science Hill in crutches. Seething in pain on the MTA, all I could think was:

 “I wish my parents were here.”

However, when I got to New Haven, a coalition of friends drove me to Yale Health, carried my bags to the fourth floor of Vandy, and kept me company for the last two days of break. Their warmth and care brought me the same sense of comfort I got when I sprained my ankle in third grade, reminding me that the comforts of home haven’t gone away but rather evolved.  

This break taught me how transitory college can feel, drifting between childhood and adulthood. I spent the whole time in thresholds — entering and leaving spaces, peaking into lives that weren’t my own and lingering in the doorways of other people’s homes. It’s jarring to feel untethered, but it also gave me the opportunity to be welcomed into other people’s lives. While this Thanksgiving was anything but a homecoming, I’ve learned that home, while it can often feel far away, isn’t about a fixed place. Home is about the moments where we share something — whether it’s a dorm or hotel, a chicken on the floor of a hospital room, an introduction to hometown friends or a traditional Thanksgiving meal. It’s all about the moments where we are invited to belong — no matter how briefly.