I’m just going to be blunt and say it: it was never my intention for my four years of undergrad to expire. If I could, I would have stayed at school and been supported by my parents forever. Moving back to your parents’ house is not an ideal situation for anyone who has been gone for four years, regardless of what they may tell you. There are, however, some perks to moving home, ones that I know I will miss if I ever leave.
My days are spent figuring out what exactly I am going to do next. What friends will I see this week? Where will I go this weekend? What jobs should I apply to? Of all of the things that I think about in a day, there is one that is constant: what meals are going to be provided for me? This is the biggest luxury of moving home and one of the few things that I can think of that I actually enjoy. When I wake up in the morning I am greeted by my sister who has most likely been sitting on Gmail waiting for me to speak to her for hours. The first thing without a doubt that she will ask me is “what are you going to eat today?” A majority of the time I respond with a simple “I don’t know,” but once this question is asked, my mind goes into a frenzy of all of the options.
I love food and I come from a family of food lovers. My sister has a blog about food (Greedy Girl Blog), my mother is a baker, and my dad chews food so loudly that you can only hope he is thoroughly enjoying it. All someone has to do is put some food in front of me and I will tolerate almost anything that person may say to me. The dinner conversation in my house is normally revolving around my step mother who is the only person to work out of the house; my father and I both “work” from home. Once she completes updating us on her day, I sometimes try to get a word in, but am quickly met with the response “get a job” before turning my attention back to the food and the horrifying noises coming from my father’s mouth.
Wednesdays are a different sort of night. We go out to dinner with my grandma who gets in the car and immediately asks what is new. Every time she asks me I say nothing, because what could be new in the life of someone who goes nowhere and sees nothing? Normally after this response she gives me a look and will direct her attention to the front seat of the car, but tonight was different. When I told her nothing was new, she then asked me if there was any news as far as a job goes. I explained that finding a job is very difficult and there was no news to report. “No news is good news,” her favorite line to say to me did not follow as it normally would. Instead my grandmother went into her plastic bag of junk mail that she brings my father every week and pulled out a newspaper that was most likely three weeks old. She explained that I should look in the wanted ads of this newspaper and see what I can find. In these ads I found “BLUE JEAN JOB!!” and “FREE PROGRAM on How to Get Rich.” It was clear that my grandmother didn’t really review the options; she just thought she would save a trip to the recycling by giving me her disposable goods. I explained to my grandma that I appreciate her help, but am not interested in remaining in the
I love my family but I cannot say they are an easy bunch to deal with, and I know for fact they would say the same of me. What I do know, and I’m quite certain they could agree with me on this, is that I put up with their nonsense and overwhelming personalities for the sake of a free meal. Being away at school you realize all of the great meals you are missing at home; homemade dinners,
My grandmother and I at one of our crab feasts, my father is in the background smiling after winning the award for "most obnoxious eater."
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