Family and Reality

College life! It's amazing! I have awesome new friends, hanging out with my movie buddy is a breeze, and I get along great with my roommate. It's one of the best experiences ever, and I'm so grateful that I have gotten this opportunity.

But that doesn't stop the homesickness.

Yeah, I have the general symptoms: reminiscence on Facebook, withdrawal symptoms from video games, frustration at the difficulties of just going shopping. I even miss commercials, in an odd kind of way. The worst of these is probably the video game withdrawals. I spent about an hour watching the cut-scenes from Tak 2: The Staff of Dreams on YouTube the other day, just to get my video game fix. I never would have believed how much I miss having a GameCube, Wii, or Xbox controller in my hands. It's gotten to the point where I've decided that once I have an apartment, the importance of my living room technology will go television, game console, DVD player, and then satellite subscription. My roommate thinks I'm crazy, but I can watch shows and movies on my computer; the game console outranks DVD player and satellite.

But the worst overall is not material. The worst part about being three states away from home is totally human; I miss my friends and family back home. My roommate is amazing, and my movie buddy is hilarious. I have incredible friends in theatre, honors, and hospitality management, not to mention the people up and down my hall. But as amazing as my roommate is, she's not my sister. As hilarious as my movie buddy is, she's not my best friend. As incredible as the theatre people here are, they're not my theatre sisters.

My sister and I used to be able to sit and talk for hours about the weirdest philosophical topics ever spoken out loud. We'd dive into the psychology of our personalities and why we got along so well together. Then five minutes later, we'd be yelling at each other for some ridiculous reason and in the next moment we'd forgotten what the argument was about. We understood each other, the way only people who've lived together for sixteen years can understand each other. We were closer than anyone could have imagined. My friends didn't understand how I could let my sister yell at me when she was frustrated; her friends never understood how she could put up with my incessant weirdness. They were just traits that we'd gotten used to. Now they're things that we miss, more than anything in the world. I miss watching her, bent over her desk completely absorbed in her homework or her artwork. I miss the weird conversations. I miss convincing her to go on adventures when all she wanted to do was stay home and sleep. I miss Emily.

One of my best friends was the girl who'd been there for me every year since our freshman year of high school. For four years, we were each other's foundations. We went through the same tragedies, we helped the same friends, and we understood how to deal with one another. Four years doesn't seem like a long time, but to us it might as well have been a lifetime. She was my cloud with its silver lining and I was her grounding wire; between us, lightning flashed. We were insane. We were ridiculous. We were best friends. It's so difficult, only being able to talk to her through a computer screen or through a phone call. I miss her twisted and terrifying fantasy situations. I miss curling up on the couch and watching movies that I never expected to watch. I miss her relentless shoving as she desperately tried to pull me from my self-conscious shell. I miss Tori.

One of my theatre sisters started out as the girl I couldn't stand. She drove me crazy. I didn't trust her and I didn't like her. Then suddenly, she was the only girl I could talk to about school and theatre. She listened to my angry rants. She understood my frustration with the newbies in theatre and peer counseling. She could always relate to my concerns. Moreover, she always knew the right thing to say. When I felt like my high school theatre would come crumbling down around me, she was the other pillar, helping me to support an entire program. She was there for me, at all times. It's weird only ever getting her advice through a text message or a message on Facebook. I miss her hugs. I miss the face she made when she understood exactly what I was saying. I miss the random political arguments that always ended with both of us admitting the validity of the other. I miss Julianna.

My other theatre sister was my big sister. As a freshman in high school, I never thought I would become so close with a senior. Her family adopted me, and mine her. We talk to one another all the time, and support each other through everything. She calls my parents Momma and Poppa; I do the same for hers. I was the little sister she never had; she was the big one I never got. She's been there through every important event in my life, even when I thought that I would never see her again. She was the first person to keep in touch with me, even when it was difficult. For three years after her graduation, she was still coming to see me off to senior ball and I was still going to every birthday party. I miss her random stories. I miss going to her house to return a book and staying there to talk for three hours. I miss her insisting that she had to go and then standing in my driveway for another hour to keep the conversation going. I miss Lauryn.

Family is not just a measure of blood, or DNA matches. The most valuable members of a family are the ones that we pick. And that isn't just friends. We pick blood relatives to come into our family as often as we pick our friends. The four women I picked to be my sisters have enriched my life more than anyone else could have. When I have kids they will be the aunts that come over all the time: Emily, the Zia that's always arguing with their mom and whose drawings are splattered around the house; Tori, the insane one who visits with her own family almost every day; Julianna, the caring one that always has a piece of advice for the smallest of problems; Lauryn, the one that shows up when you need her the most and stays because you don't want her to leave.

The next three years for me will be amazing, but that's nothing compared to what it will be like to come home. So many people say that they want college to last as long as it possibly can; I want it to be done as soon possible. The fun, for me, starts not now, but when I step back into the world, ready to start my life with the four women that have shaped it. Reality with these people will be worth more to me than anything else.