I tried overnight camp an embarrassingly large number of times, and with each attempt to penetrate the world away from home, I failed. I was the homesick girl, the one who cried to anyone who’d listen and hid underneath the bench at the roller rink on the pay phone, praying that my disgruntled superiors wouldn’t find me.
There was always a moment. After the initial excitement of the new surroundings settled and the reality of the situation sunk in, I would realize that I couldn’t go home and I’d panic.
My face would grow flustered and I’d make a beeline for the closest authority — my nearest link to home.
So the idea of leaving home for college at the University of Wisconsin-Madison sort of scared me. I felt ready, but I’d always felt ready to go to camp, and therefore was anxiously anticipating that familiar panic.
But I’ve been here for several weeks now, and the seminal moment never came. For a girl that avoids change like the plague, that’s pretty weird. I’ve tried to analyze it. I thought maybe it’s because I have more freedom here than I had at camp, or because I know I can access home at any time. Mostly, though, I’ve avoided the subject as not to jinx it.
I grew up in Milwaukee’s North Shore. Statistically, the proportion of Jews to the general population in my home area compared to the proportion of Jews to the world’s population is obviously unrealistic.
To top it off, my high school involvement in B’nai B’rith Youth Organization greatly increased my interactions with other Jews.
Although there are still a number of Jews in Madison, it doesn’t match my hometown, and because of my jam-packed schedule, it doesn’t look like Jewish activities at Hillel Foundation University of Wisconsin are in my future.
I thought for sure this drastic change, as other Jews sort of became a comfort zone for me in high school, would be highly emotional. All of my best friends in high school were Jewish, and now my roommate wouldn’t even by Jewish.
But it turns out that it doesn’t matter. I get along wonderfully with my roommate, and my group of friends includes people with many religious backgrounds, including Jews.
And finally, I think I have an explanation. Growing up in the Jewish community taught me how to be with people. Focused on the just and humane treatment of other human beings, our religion is highly social.
From that perspective, it feels like I never left home. What I didn’t realize when I was younger was that you can take all of it with you. Every experience I had, every lesson I learned and everything I ever felt builds me and determines my future.
When I think of it in those terms, home isn’t really a place; home is the memories that shaped and colored me. It’s thinking about the people who mattered and continue to affect me. Home is in the things they told me and the times they supported me. And home is in the knowledge that because of this, they don’t ever really leave me.
I’m not naïve enough to think that I stepped out of high school and into the “real world.” I know that college is its own bubble with its particular limitations and misrepresentations of what’s really out there.
But that’s okay for now, because it’s a different bubble than my previous one, and each little world has its own constraints or protective front.
And I’m looking forward to change, as this new place and these new people become part of me. Part of changing is letting go of the past. And part of letting go is trusting that the past has woven itself through me — effortlessly and seamlessly — and brought me to this season.
A former Chronicle intern, Kiera Wiatrak is a first year student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Loading ...