Best Part of Coming Home

 Hey! I just moved back home a few days ago after my first year at college, and like all students who come home for the summer, I feel as if I can finally breathe a sigh of relief... No more homework, no more papers due, and no more exams! Well, that last bit probably doesn't apply to me... but regardless, I am very happy to be home after so much time apart from my family and friends from home.

Now of course, I'm enjoying all of the benefits of being home like oversleeping, seeing friends from different colleges, and no worries of some asshole roommates, but I've realized that above anything else, the thing I've missed most is the food! Brushing aside all of the fat jokes I can make about myself, I have been so happy to have consistent homemade meals instead of the everyday Pollo Tropical or Panera sandwiches. I've been eating much more healthy (and overall tastier) food than ever before, and that led me to do some thinking the other night about why I'm so happy with the good eats:

Getting the obvious out of the way- yes, the food is simply better. I'm not depending on some exhausted minimum wage fast food employee for my sustenance, I'm getting food made by my loving parents that are simply expert cooks in my book, and they are always trying to perfect and diversify my diet. The sheer availability of food I have around the house is just generally healthier too, I find myself snacking on more fruits and granola than I do junk food and leftovers like I did in my dorm.

But after giving it some more thought, I think that's exactly what made the food from home so much better: the thought. Beyond the quality and quantity of food, I get to watch and help my parents cook and make meals for all of us to share as a family. I didn't really give it much thought before I left for college, but I realized how rare and lucky it is that my family, in spite of whatever is going on, will always eat together. It didn't matter if one of us was sick, busy, or mad at each other: it was an unspoken rule that we would all eat at the same dinner table at the same time as everyone else, no matter what was going on in our lives at the time.

I really took for granted what it meant to be eating with my family every day before I moved out- once I settled into my new life as a college student, I found myself asking Wade, my roommate: "Hey, when do you want to eat something?" And for a while, we would eat pretty much every meal together. But over time, we started eating less and less meals together- one of us would always be busy with schoolwork or our relationships or extracurricular activities. We didn't drift at all, but personally, I mourned that reliable hour or two every day where we would just sit down, eat, and chat together about whatever was going on.

As time went on, I realized that I was a very social eater: if I couldn't coordinate with my partner, my roommate, or one of my other friends on campus to find a time for me to eat with someone, I would just flat out not eat! It's a little pathetic to admit, but eventually I would bring food to my room and join a voice call with some friends over Discord or even put on a podcast to feel like I was eating with people, it got to that point.

But as soon as I'd go home for the holidays, I'd instantly feel a sense of peace fall over me, however slight. I think it was Thanksgiving when I made the connection: I've spent every single day of my life for nearly two decades eating around people, whether it be lunchtime at school or dinners with my family. It was such a constant in my life that I hadn't even noticed how fortunate I was to be able to rely on the certainty of being able to eat with my Mom and Dad every single night, regardless of how demanding their jobs would be or how exhausted they were, and to catch up with my sister's school antics and studies.

And that's not to say every meal was sunshine and rainbows: I remember plenty of tense, quiet dinners that followed big arguments or slip-ups. But through it all, we would nonetheless sit and eat our food together. And it wasn't until many, many years later that I would realize what I had the entire time. I know it's corny and whatever, but I truly mean it when I say that eating with my family is one of the most important values that my parents had instilled in me. Whether in good health, good moods, or neither of those, we would always face the day together, if only for a short while every day.

These were all thoughts I had floating around in my mind a few days ago as I was eating the empanadas my parents had made together, or when I grilled a few burgers with my Dad the day I got home. At the end of the day, food would always bring us together, whether we were making it or eating it. So yeah, regardless of whether it makes me sound fat or not, food really is the best part of coming home.