No Place Like Home
Home is a video of my five-year-old self. He and I aren’t too different. Sure, I’m a little taller and I dress myself now (thank god), but when younger me dances and lip-syncs in our garish early-2000s basement, I see the performer in me. When he happily recites the fifty states for his parents, I see the student and the show-off. When he refuses to let his sister in on his games, I see the loner and the narcissist. All this through the grainy home videos flickering on my television.
A week or two into quarantine, my parents, my sister and I sat in our living room and hooked up our now ancient camera to watch home videos from childhood. My mom kept saying how much we hadn’t changed, and though I didn’t grasp what she meant at first, I came to understand. On the screen, I played make-believe fairies and wizards with my sister, and now for a week or so we’ve been planning an online Dungeons & Dragons campaign. I tactlessly responded to gifts with disdain, and still I put my foot in my mouth and get flak for being too harsh. My parents were always behind the camera egging on my antics, and they’ve never stopped supporting me in all my endeavors. The details have shifted, but being home again, my family dynamics have fallen right back into place.
Altogether, of course, there are some fundamental differences: my sister and I are both adults now with an understanding of the reality of the world. We have the agency to make decisions for ourselves. I feel I’ve come into my own since attending Northwestern, articulating the direction I want to take in life and losing my inhibitions about expressing myself. Then again, Northwestern’s out the window now, isn’t it? My family hasn’t lived together like this since my freshman year of high school before my sister left for college, and I can’t help but feel that the person I was at that time is creeping back into existence. So much of my identity now — including my fashion presentation — is dependent on relating to my peers, something that feels hollow over Zoom.
I reached out to other Northwestern students to see how their lives have been similarly upended by quarantine and what it means to go home and be with family again.
Haley Fuller, a second-year transfer student majoring in journalism and religious studies, has gone home to New Canaan, Connecticut, where she lives with her mom and stepdad. With more family close by, she sometimes sees her father and stepsister as well.
“Life with any family is crazy and hectic. And then you add in the dynamics of a blended family, and then you ensure that all of you are stuck together for an extended period of time, so it's definitely been tricky for all of us,” she said. “We get on each other’s nerves a decent amount, just always being with each other.”
Though her family is supportive of her, Fuller says that she misses the support of other Northwestern students who can better relate to her experiences. “It's just a very different dynamic to not be surrounded by your peers who are going through all the same things,” she said.
Michael Senko, a second-year linguistics and communication studies major, has also returned to the East Coast for quarantine. In Swampscott, Massachusetts, he’s living in a full house: he, his mom, his dad, his three sisters and one of his sisters’ boyfriends are all confined together.
“I try not to get involved with the family drama. But there's definitely been a lot of that,” Senko said. “I mean, it's been nice to have them around and spend all this time with them and stuff, but it definitely has been tense at times.”
Though he’s happy about being with family to an extent, it’s also been a detriment to his academic success.
“I think being at home and surrounded by my family has definitely hurt my ability to focus on work for long amounts of time,” he said. “I feel like we've been stepping on each other's toes a lot, especially with workspaces.”
The game has changed even more significantly for international students like Nami Hoffman, a second-year journalism major now at home in Seoul, South Korea. Having attended high school in the United States, Hoffman’s return to South Korea was something of culture shock.
“I grew up here, born here, never really lived anywhere else until I left for high school. And despite all of that, I don't speak Korean fluently, which has always been kind of an obstacle,” she said. “But, I don't know, I wouldn't change anything, I guess. And it's not too bad just because, especially right now, I'm not leaving my house as much even though I have the opportunity to.”
That’s right: in Seoul, quarantine regulations are much looser than they are in most of the U.S., so Hoffman isn’t technically stuck in the home she shares with her mother, father and younger brother. But that doesn’t make it any easier to have lost the Northwestern environment.
“I think the hard part is being at home and spending so much time in my bedroom. I just want to lay down and do nothing,” she said. “But then there's this weird dichotomy where, even though I feel like I don't want to do anything, I feel really guilty. And I think that's the Northwestern part of me being like, ‘well, Nami, if you were at school, you'd be doing all these clubs, you'd be doing all of this, you'd be applying for jobs.’ So there's been a big push and pull since I've been back home.”
To these and all other Northwestern students struggling to thrive in their home environments, know that we’re all in this together. Like Fuller, I desperately miss the energy of my peers. Like Senko, I struggle to get work done with my family around. Like Hoffman, I feel conflicted about maintaining the pressures of school while at home. Like everyone, I wish I could go back to Northwestern and be the person that I was when I was there.
As it is, I’m happy to listen to everyone’s stories and take comfort in my own. This situation isn’t ideal (obviously), but I’m grateful to have my home and my family through this extraordinary time. I’m grateful for my mom, my dad, my sister and my five-year-old self, who shows me who I’ve been, who I am now and who I want to be.