Happily homeward bound

“Where did you say you were from again?”

“California.”

“And I suppose you’ll be going home at some point for this winter vacation?”

Immediately, I jumped into a well-rehearsed explanation of how I didn’t need to go home. I would rather stay here in New Jersey and earn money than pay $500 to fly across the country; I didn’t mind staying back if it meant I could get rid of that credit card balance (curse you, Capital One Rewards Card). In fact, I had decided several weeks before that I couldn’t afford that trip home, which would be only two weeks long anyway.

It was his turn to nod his head with every word. When I finally finished my righteous speech on the recklessness of such sentimentality in the face of financial constraints, he simply stared at me over the wire rims of his glasses and stayed quiet for almost half a minute before speaking again. When he opened his mouth, it was only to tell me that in his first year of college, he, too, had stayed at school for Christmas, owing to the fact that his family was not on the other side of the country, but on the other side of the globe altogether. He spent Christmas Day at a friend’s house, but as for the rest of that vacation, “It was the most miserable time of my life.”

While I had been sitting in this interview to find another job to pay my expenses, to involve myself in one more thing to keep me on this campus and make my stay worth my time, I abruptly came to understand why it was so important for me to go home instead. When others had warned me of how much I might miss my family and a Christmas at home, I had dismissed it, thinking that I knew better. But when I finally heard someone who had been through the fires of a lonely holiday imply that I would regret my decision, I believed him wholeheartedly. In my desire to avoid the pitfalls of debt that I have seen among my closest friends and family, I had come to perceive my return home as a financial burden, rather than as a blessing transcending monetary value. But someone much wiser from experience was telling me that a Christmas away from home would hurt me to the core, and I could not help but take him at his word.

Today, I succumb to the sentimental in the spirit of the holidays and cover a topic far beyond the reach of affirmative action or grade deflation. I speak of the necessity to return to one’s roots, to venture home to enrich not only oneself, but also the campus to which one will return soon enough. By paying homage to the past and place from which he comes, a student is able to revisit the self that originally came to Princeton, thereby allowing our campus community to retain a diversity of experiences and backgrounds via a seasonal renewal of cultural, familial and individual tradition and commitment. In those times of rejuvenation and escape from stress, we can stop shying away from loans and cease clinging to the security of a paycheck. Instead, we can take that one jump from the safety net, falling comfortably instead into the arms of the people we wish to be with this holiday season, mortal arms that may in fact whither before we have had the opportunity — or rather, taken the opportunity — to reciprocate their embrace for those few moments when we are away from exams, homework, bank statements and jobs, for it is only in those moments of removal that we can appreciate their importance in our lives.

Most likely, I am preaching to the choir when I say that cost should be irrelevant when considering whether or not to go home for these rare celebrations, but I remain adamant in exhorting all of us to not take for granted the moments we have together with our loved ones over the holidays. I myself, walking out of that interview on a freezing Friday afternoon, could not get the broken record in my head to stop playing the uncharacteristically accusatory lyrics of a Christmas favorite: “Through the years we all will be together … if the fates allow.” With all the feeling and earnestness of that same carol, I wish all readers traveling home a wonderful time with those they love.

As for myself, my next call after that interview was to Mama, asking her to hold off on mailing me my stocking stuffers and instead pick me up from the airport in 11 days.

Joey Barnett is a sophomore from Tulare, Calif. He can be reached at jbarnett@princeton.edu.