Family

Mom, chocolate ice cream, and peach melba at dinner on October 16, 2015

"Welcome to the Hoya Family!" they cheered at us during NSO. (For the non-Georgetown readers, NSO stands for New Student Orientation, the four days before classes start, full of overwhelming enthusiasm from orientation advisors and crippling freshmen awkwardness.) Honestly, the Hoya family isn't too far off from the Mohr family—just as many people I don't know at reunions, a hearty love of alcohol, and witty jokes. The only thing that's missing from the Hoya family is people telling me, "The last time I saw you you were this high!" like they'd forgotten about the passage of time and the growth patterns of children.

Last weekend was Family Weekend, and it highlighted an extremely important aspect of Georgetown and of the concept of "family" as a whole. 

My parents left Georgia last Thursday around 10 PM, and I woke up at 7:50 AM on Friday morning to a phone call from Mom. "We'll be there in fifteen minutes, okay, so get ready and we'll pick you up for breakfast!" My dad idled by Darnall Hall as we played twenty questions over the phone so that I could find him. (The winning answer was, "There's a hospital on campus, right? I think I'm by that.") We had breakfast in their hotel restaurant, and Mom could not stop smiling. The girls talked a mile a minute, just like always.

I was really excited to see and hug my family. I was really excited to introduce them to my new friends, and I was really excited to just hang out with them for a while. We ended up going to very few of the scheduled parents-weekend activities, deciding it was much more fun to spend time on our own. Everyone was really tired, them from the long car drive and me from doing this whole college thing, but it was so incredibly nice to see them.

Strangely, being with my immediate family made it feel like no time had passed. Also strangely, the "Hoya family" didn't seem to exist, at least not to me. The only family that mattered last weekend was my blood relatives and the people I had formed bonds with. I am a part of something here at Georgetown; I know that intellectually and emotionally. Maybe one day it will feel like a family, but for now, it is something Other, not necessarily worse but definitely not better. My family is the people I choose to love.