Miami Student

Issue date: 3/29/05 Section: OpEd Page

I went home to Toledo last weekend. Of course I probably didn't have the time, but I always have some reason for going home. This weekend it was my dad's birthday and Easter, but the truth is there was more to it than just going home. I am living a double life: the life I have in Toledo and the life I have at Miami, and lately the two seem to be drifting farther and farther apart.At Miami I am probably just like every other college student. I order pizza at least once a week, do the laundry about once a month and walk around with a dazed look on my face from the realization that the amount of work I have to do far exceeds the amount of time I have to do it. That is my college life, the life I lead when I am at school. But it isn't my only life.When I leave Miami and head back home, I seem to enter some sort of time warp. As soon as I exit Oxford, I can forget about professors and papers and get back into the mindset of home, where nobody ever worries about deadlines or appointments, where nobody has any deadlines or appointments. It's like my entire outlook on life changes, like I become a different person. . .When I walk into my house, my mom and dad give me a big hug because they are happy that I made it after all, since I wasn't sure I would have the time to come home this weekend. I didn't have the time, but I came home anyway.The next morning we go to my grandma's house for Easter dinner and it hits me how long it has been since I have even seen my grandma. Of course I went to Christmas dinner, but that was ages ago. I sit down with my aunts as they talk about things I didn't even know were happening. And my uncles are telling stories that I missed when I was down at school. I begin to feel like a fraud, trying to laugh with them, but knowing that I have no idea what has gone on in their lives for the past few weeks.I tell them about school and all of the things that are going on in my life. They are all happy and proud, but for some reason it isn't enough. "I am so busy right now," I think to myself, "and I shouldn't be here when I could be working. I am sacrificing a lot of my time to be here tonight."For some reason I want them to know that. Of course I don't say it, but I just want them to know what my life is like now and they can't. None of them understand; they aren't in college; they don't see me every day anymore. I keep thinking about all of the homework I have to get done when I go back to Miami on Sunday and all of the work I will be doing for the next five weeks. I try to push it out of my mind. I am at home and that isn't who I am here.But then I start looking around me and notice how tall my cousin, Dusty, is, and how grown up my sister has gotten. I attempt to talk to my cousin, Heather, about school and realize that she is almost old enough to drive, which can't be possible because she was only just starting high school when I left. How has everyone changed so much?I guess I half expected their lives to stop when I was at Miami and pick back up again when I came home, but now I think of all the work that is waiting for me at school and I realize that I haven't stopped living my life just because I am not home anymore. I was silly to think that they would.For almost two years I have been doing this - going home and seeing things gradually change so slowly that maybe I didn't notice it until now. For two years I have been fooling myself into thinking that home in Toledo was my life and college was just some sort of short detour. And for two years I have been slowly meeting new people and making new plans at Miami.I finally realized over the weekend that maybe this college thing isn't just a short detour. Maybe it is my life. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that anything will ever replace home or my family. But now that I am on my own, I realize that the old Stephany, the one I want to revert back to every time I go home, is slowly being phased out by the new Stephany, the college student who has her own responsibilities and plans now.It isn't that I am leading a double life, it's just that I am in a transition from the old one to the new one, and it's hard to let go of the old, even if you know you have to.I realize that I have to be on my own now, but I still hope that this new path I am starting doesn't take me too far away. Will the new Stephany and the old Stephany ever meet in the future? Probably not, I think the old Stephany may be leaving for good soon. But that doesn't mean the new Stephany can't ever go home again, and I really hope that someday she does.

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