reflections on home/life

By Tamika Whitenack

I am sitting here on the Metro-North train, headed to Grand Central. The Hudson is passing by on the left. This is a familiar trip now, and it definitely makes me think and reflect…pretty much every time I’m on the train it signifies the start of the end of a semester at Vassar…and now I’ve lived through 4! I’ve been reflecting a lot over the past few weeks, maybe even months.

When is it time to try and come home? My beloved sister wrote me this question in a text a few months ago, as the grad school decision mania was in full swing, and it struck me, it found a corner of my heart and almost made me cry. The question then took residence in the back of my mind, where I have been carefully watching it, thinking about it, feeling it in my body.

This past semester, more than any other semester, I experienced homesickness. I always love home and miss food and am grateful for the weather, family, nature at home, proudly talk about the Bay Area and my family. I think about home every semester at Vassar and I look forward to going home. But this semester, I experienced the distance from home in a different way, in the form of something more physical, not just thinking of home, but feeling something every time I was reminded of home…and being reminded of home by just about everything! I can’t describe exactly what this feeling was, sort of an ache, sort of a pang, a sense of something missing, a hole, a yearning…I don’t know how to put it into words, but it was a sensation of missing home that I have never experienced before. I was not sad though, and my semester at Vassar was not an arduous one. Truthfully, I love my life at Vassar. This semester I had 5 classes that I all genuinely enjoyed, learned a great deal of exciting new ideas, felt fulfilled with my work for Asian Students’ Alliance, ALANA, Vassar Asian American Studies Working Group, and Vassar Food Community. I’ve kept running and fitness classes in my life, and try to cook, bake, hike and do art whenever I have time. And this semester was full of special experiences: the two-week study trip class to the UK and Ireland, the Philadelphia half-marathon, the Association for Asian American Studies Conference in Wisconsin, a visit to the Culinary Institute of America. And the best part of this semester, perhaps the best part of my Vassar experience is the people that I get to share it with. This semester I was able to continue growth of old friendships, cultivate new friendships, and make so many memories, both small and large. I’ve been reflecting on these relationships a lot the past few days, as I’ve written cards for friends and professors and said good-byes (which thankfully, are really just temporary good-byes). There are so many things I will miss:  my Saturday morning long runs with Lindsay and our brunch at the dining hall afterwards, baking experiments and watching Great British Bake-Off with Kanako, hiking and scheming of Asian American Studies endeavors with Nicole, snack parties and studying with Joy, to name a few. My friends here offer so much kindness, support, and meaningful conversations, they make me think and help me grow but they also remind me to be silly and they know how to make fun of my vegetable obsession and impish tendencies. It is so nice to walk around and see these people and smile at them and I feel warm with appreciation for them.  

So all this is to say, I’ve had a lovely semester at Vassar, and yet, I also feel it was my hardest in some ways due to my experience with homesickness. And I believe perhaps it is because my life at Vassar is a beautiful one that the homesickness felt so strong and complicated. Because if I was not happy at Vassar, I would know it was time to try and come home as soon as possible. But I am happy there, very happy. Yet I know I am also very happy at home, I love home in so many ways for so many reasons. And I think it is this duality of loving two worlds that I have come to realize this year and that has perhaps made me grow up in a big way. I think this semester really made me understand that I cannot have everything I want at the same time, because people and places just don’t all overlap in that way, and if they did, it wouldn’t really be the same anyway. And I feel so fortunate to be able to have multiple happy places and special people in this world, but I think the idealist part of me that always wants to have it all struggles a little with the reality that everything is a choice and that where I am, even if I love where I am, means that I am not somewhere else, and it means that I am missing out on that world that I also love. And I believe what really worries me here is the things that I am missing out on that I may not be able to do in the future. A few weeks ago I reflected on the fact that it is possible I will never go on a long run with Cam again…not because we don’t want to, but because we are each living our own lives. And this was a strange thought to me, because those long runs were such an important part of my high school experience, and whenever we went on our last one, I don’t think either of us thought it would really be our LAST one. And so I wonder, how many other lasts have I had, will I have, that I don’t know are the last? And do I try to determine if it is the last so that I can treat it with care and respect and try to make it momentous and perfect? Or is this an unnecessary amount of worry? The conclusion that I’ve come to for now  is to just treasure each and every experience and person that I have for the moment that is in, with intention and respect and care but without the pressure that this might be the last, even if it might be. For me, to live every moment as if it is the last would be too sad and scary, but to live every moment as if it is meant to be lived and that is special enough, that feels like a celebration of life and a fulfilling way to lead life. So I think that is what I am trying to do.

So, back to when is it time to try and come home. Well, apparently not quite yet. In 24 hours, I will be in Barcelona, not El Cerrito, and I am so excited for that and yet, in that sense of duality and missing, also a little bit sad. I am going to Barcelona as part of a Vassar funded fellowship for language study abroad, and I will be taking a Spanish language class as well as doing an internship. The internship will be with a wedding planner, so that should be very interesting! Mostly, I’m excited to be immersed in the culture and to explore a new place, meet new people, and hopefully really improve my language skills. Going to Spain for language study abroad in college has been a dream of mine for a while, I think partially inspired by my dear father. So it feels a little crazy to be doing it now, and in a way that feels special. I am literally getting to live my dreams. And I’ve realized that a lot of my life is like this, my job last summer with Acta Non Verba was in many ways my dream summer job, my life at Vassar is close to idyllic, and every time I come home, it does feel a little magical to run in Tilden or go to Berkeley Bowl or just sit in the car as the sun sets over the Golden Gate Bridge. I am a dreamer and a schemer and a possibly obsessive planner, but I also feel like I am a doer and a liver of my dreams and schemes and plans and that feels pretty cool. And is also such a privilege, which I continually try to remind myself and be aware of and navigate these new experiences in a careful way that acknowledges these privileges. And one of these privileges, perhaps the biggest in some ways, is the support that I feel from those around me, especially family. To go across the country for college, to go across the ocean for the start of summer, these are exciting times but also inevitably mean time away from home and away from family and this makes me sad, yet I choose to do it because I feel like it is okay because family tells me it is okay, tells me to go and journey and get these experiences, and fully supports it in all the various regards related to resources and emotional encouragement. While I can’t help but feel a little guilty that I’m not home, I don’t think I feel guilty because anyone has made me, only because I myself feel badly to be away. And this is really special because I know not everyone has that, and I’m so grateful that my family can love me in multiple ways and one of those ways of love is from afar.

I intended to write this as an update on my life, my semester at Vassar and my summer plans, but I believe it has become a bit more of a thoughtful outpouring of reflections and emotions and love for many things. Oops. That feels very Tamika of me, to be honest. I’m struggling to figure out how to end this, so perhaps I’ll return to that question again: When is it time to try and come home? Well, for now, July 15. Two weeks ago, I was thinking about how it will feel to walk off the plane into the airport and I started crying, not because of sadness I don’t think, just because of emotion because I will be so ready to be home and to see whoever is waiting for me. And I think what I have realized is that I will always be ready to come home, and home will always be waiting for me.