As it often goes after the first week of being home for the summer, I miss being in New Brunswick. But in the last few weeks of residing at school, all I wanted was to be in my house with my family. There’s a certain something about each place that makes me feel at home. And, strangely enough, it’s a little disturbing in a way that it shouldn’t be.
Unfortunately, I have developed a sort of home identity crisis. A home-dentity crisis, for lack of better words. I can’t accept the way my mother got upset every time I told her that I was heading back “home,” rather than to my dorm room. Rutgers truly has become a second home for me. A welcoming meal from Brower, occasionally brown tap water, a roof that might cause me cancer over my head – I’ve got the basics at Rutgers, albeit sketchy. I know my way around New Brunswick just as well as I know my way around the roads of my town. I can probably recommend more eateries to the average tourist in “Little Manhattan” than I can in Plainsboro. (But, let’s be honest, nobody comes to Plainsboro anyway. Only a handful of people know where the place is, I can’t be expected to be prepared for tourists.)
But I’m not so Harry Potter-esque in my feelings towards Rutgers, as I’m quite fond of my “actual” home. It’s a cute little piece of the rash known as suburbia that is found blotchily spread through New Jersey. I love the wide-laned roads, the adorable strip malls with lovely local restaurants to spare, the neatly organized abundance of green lawns, and of course, my house and everyone in it. This place is where I’ve spent exactly ten years of my life – a most crucial ten years. It would be a shame to not consider it my home, just because something exciting and different comes along.
Harry Potter had it easy; the Dursleys treated him like shit. I am lucky enough to be surrounded by people who love me and care about me in both places. I like to see myself, and maybe many other students, as more of a Hermione Granger. I love my parents and my quiet little suburban lifestyle, but I also always look forward to the adventures and this new life that being at school naturally brings to me. Although, I admittedly don’t want to have to erase my parents’ memories, so I won’t take this analogy that far.
In the end, this polygamous and slightly tumultuous relationship with Rutgers and Plainsboro got me thinking that I’ll always have two homes. I’ll just have to embrace the fact that I get to be a part of two worlds. Wherever my family is, that’s home. But wherever I build a life of my own, that’s home, too.
– Pooja Kolluri