(via thcfinder.com)

We asked our first year writers what it was like to be back home for the first time. Here’s what they told us.

Julia Lindsay ’18

I’ll be the first to admit that I left home with virtually no ties to my town; I went to high school 45 minutes away from home and was generally apathetic towards my alma mater. The entirety of my tenure there was spent as the resident Liz Lemon. Add in the fact that I had already watched my sister go through her first Thanksgiving and you’ve got one really underwhelmed first year. I was pretty aware that coming home for the first time meant watching Netflix and waiting to be back at Kenyon, while also not really feeling at home in either place. Swallowing my pride (and attempting to open my mind), I arrived home.The week quickly became a retreat back into my high school years, or at least, how thirteen year old me imagined my high school years. I hung out with my parents and drank a lot of lattes; we listened to Michael Bublé on repeat during Thanksgiving dinner, we saw an oddly depressing yet well-made film and I snuggled my dogs for upwards of two hours a day. Yeah, it was weird, and when I visited my old high school I felt sixteen again–but I’m also a hell of a lot cooler now. Coming home as the person I’m finally growing up to be was liberating. My First Thanksgiving: I can’t say I’d do it again, but it sure was one for the books.

Sam Roschewsk ’18

Coming home for me was a myriad of discoveries. For example, I discovered that parents, when you’re their first kid to leave home, don’t really know how to act around you, like, “wow there’s a person here that used to live here, but isn’t really a guest what do we do with her?” In short, every time I tried to leave a room with my parents in it they said something to the effect of “you’re leaving us ALREADY?” Then, at dinner, when my brother was finished eating he tried to push his plate to my side of the table and then said, “Oh. You usually aren’t here and this is where we put the dirty dishes.” Nice.