Be There While You Can

In the final year of high school, most students want to get away from home. They want to experience something completely new, and the thought of being independent is exciting. And maybe they feel restricted at home, so they crave for all the college freedom that they hear of and see in movies, books, and from older friends. That was me in my final year of high school. I was tired of what seemed to be the same old thing every day, and I couldn’t wait to get away. But it was only after some distance that I started to understand my parents and feel a sense of loss and regret for my aloof relationship with them.

Back then, all my mother seemed to do was nag; she would spend hours doing research on colleges and finding out which ones had the highest rankings, which ones had the best programs, which ones would give me the highest chance of getting into medical school. She would wake me up at five in the morning because she suddenly felt anxious and would spend the morning frantically asking if I even wanted to go to college. When she started to cry over the B’s I had in two of my classes, I was so shocked that I didn’t even try to make her feel better like I should have. In the moment all I felt was anger and frustration; of course I wanted to go to college. It was my future, and I was worried sick and regretful of my less-than-stellar grades. I understood that she wanted the best for me, but it didn’t make sense to me why she seemed to care more than I did.

My younger sister, a straight-A student who’s currently at the top of her class, also cried over my grades: “Christina, you have so many B’s. Aren’t you scared for your future?” she asked me tearfully. And my father didn’t seem to care much until the end, when I got rejected or waitlisted from Ivy League schools. It all made me feel like shit to be honest. So I did my best to tune everyone out; I would go straight to my room after dinner, saying I had things to do, while the rest of my family would spend time together. I wasn’t allowed to spend time with friends, I didn’t have texting, and most social networking sites were blocked at my house, so I would find proxies and keep in contact with friends through email. I grew distant from my family, and I developed the tendency to put other things before them.

Part of it was guilt that made me want to alienate myself. I felt guilty because I knew it was my fault, and I didn’t want to face my family’s disappointment. I had been lazy in high school. But because my parents pushed me so much to go into the medical field, I wasn’t sure if that was what I wanted anymore. I lost motivation just because I felt I was being forced to do everything for them, not for me. It’s one thing to have the freedom to pursue your goals in your own way, and another thing to have people try to pave a particular restricting path for you, even if the general end goal is the same.

Now that I’m in college, everything is on my own shoulders. I have to decide on my own to study ahead of time for exams, to speak to professors outside of class, to participate in extracurricular activities. But it’s nice because it has helped me realize what I do really want to do with my life, without the influence of others. I regained my motivation because I was able to do things my own way, and I’ve enjoyed it.

I didn’t call my family for a while, until my mother called me one weekend. She didn’t really say much, and it felt kind of awkward, but she told me she wanted me to call her more often. Her voice broke a little—or maybe it was just the phone static. Either way, her words made my heart ache. What hit me the most was when she told me she knew I would do well by myself. I suddenly understood; despite her constant control, my mother had acknowledged that I could do things my own way. She had put so much effort into my academics because she wanted so badly for me to get into a “good” college so that I could build my foundation in an environment that would be most beneficial for me. And now, when I was away in college, was when she needed company most; my sister was already accepted into colleges and finishing up high school, and my dad worked 9 hours away from home, so my mother was always home alone. I wanted to be there for her, for everyone, and I regretted I hadn’t done so before.

When I left for college, I never thought I would miss home. But I learned through my experience that it really is true that you only realize what you’ve got when you lose it, even temporarily. I miss the dynamics and feeling of being at home, surrounded by people who care so much. I know when I go home now, I’ll be a lot more grateful than I used to be.