Going home

It was the night before Thanksgiving break. Taxis and Ubers were all over campus, and Dukies could be seen dragging their luggage out of dorms throughout the day. I had just pulled through a heavy week of exams, papers and limited hours of sleep, so I had barely even realized that our break was impending.

I packed my bag while Skyping my parents. Everything was normal. They gave me the latest scoop on our family and friends, asked me what I wanted for dinner when I landed and begged me to get more sleep. I casually asked them to remind me of my flight number when we all came to a horrifying realization: thinking that someone else in the family had done it , no one ever booked my plane ticket. What followed was a frantic session of calling American Airlines and finding out the dramatic distinction between putting a flight on hold and booking a flight. Whoops.

For a while, it looked like I would be stranded on campus over Thanksgiving. Luckily, after aggressively engaging in a click war on the American Airlines website, we were able to snag the last ticket home. Relieved, I went to bed dreaming of mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie.

When I went to my friend’s car early the next morning, we found ourselves staring at a layer of ice from the frozen morning dew all over the windshield. Without an ice scraper, we were temporarily powerless until someone grabbed Tupperware from the trunk and resourcefully scraped the ice off. By the time I rolled up to RDU at 4 a.m., I had a rude awakening about the holiday season at the airport. It was packed like I’d never seen before. Without realizing that I still had a respectable chunk of time left to get through security, I panicked. As I ran around the airport trying to find the end of the line, the line seemed to form alongside me. I called my Dad, running alongside the airport line, dragging my luggage and sobbing into the phone. It was probably quite the sight.

“I’m not going to come home! I’m not going to come home!” I sobbed. Meanwhile, my Dad begged me to calm down telling me that the plane never leaves anyone behind (not sure if this is true; I think he was just trying to comfort me) and that we could find a new ticket home if I couldn’t get on this flight. Meanwhile, my mom heard my Dad asking if I was alright and telling me everything was okay and made the dramatic assumption that I had been in some sort of terrible accident. (It was 4 a.m., so cut us a little slack). In the background, I could hear my mom crying and panicking.

Like I said, not pretty for the Raos. The story ends with me speeding through security and sitting in my seat right on time. The lesson? Make sure you actually book your plane ticket, keep an ice scraper in your glove compartment and get to security unreasonably early.

The real lesson is how important it apparently was for me to get home. The reality is that Thanksgiving is a relatively short break, and that I will be going home again in less than two weeks. Still, I was on the edge of tears several times throughout this saga. I don’t think it was the mashed potatoes or the cranberries that I was upset about missing. It was the chance to be together with my family.

College is actually really weird in the sense that you spend 18 years of your life in the constant care and protection of your parents. Then, one fine day, you’re dropped off at a remote location, hours away, and build a whole new life. At least, that’s how it worked out for me. It honestly surprised me how badly I wanted to go home given that I almost didn’t realize that we had a break coming up and how happy I am at Duke. I underestimated that powerful drive to go home and the need to be with my family.

So I hope that everyone got to see their parents and siblings or see their friends and eat lots of delicious Thanksgiving food. I know that I did.