Makeshift Homes
It’s both Christmas time and finals week here in the college bubble. It’s always very conflicting to be so close to going home and being done with the semester, but having to finish and cram and basically relearn everything. We all want to be children, playing in the snow, able to carelessly dance around to Christmas music. Except I have to finish my fifteen page research paper, my apartment-mates have all their crazy science exams, and I see lots of tired eyes and sleepyheads.
This semester, I’ve been living in an apartment with three pretty great humans named Sarah, Ellie, and Amanda. We’ve all had quite the ride these past few months with projects and practicals, labs and very little leisure. But Ellie had the idea of making a gingerbread house together to celebrate the season and destress before finals. And I think that is what we all needed.
So, I put on some Christmas jams, Sarah got the frosting ready, and Ellie spread the copious amount of colored candy across the coffee table.
As a kid, I remember being slightly confused why “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” was such a sad song and why it was played to much on the radio. Of course I was going to be home for Christmas, where else would I be? Going to college put those melancholy lyrics into perspective for me when I realized what being away from home felt like.
Sometimes leaving the home of your childhood brings new homes, better fit for the growing self. Sometimes leaving home brings confusion and a bit of loneliness no matter who you are surrounded by. But either way, we adapt and we build makeshift homes to sleep in, a place to keep our things and live with our friends.
These homes might be made with cookie walls. The doors might be fictional, drawn on with frosting. And maybe the windows are struggling to even look like windows. But we are still learning.
It may be a little drafty, but we mend the holes together. We decorate them with candy cane pillars. The frosting-snow is bedazzled with colorful beads of sugar. And Santa’s reindeer are impeccably balanced on the slippery roof.
Sarah, Ellie, Amanda, and I will all be leaving our makeshift home for the holidays. But we’ll find ourselves back here again, making our way through the Michigan wind and snow together.
Have a lovely Christmas in whatever home you find yourself.-kj