Passover at Home

Chiara came home with me to celebrate passover with my entire family!
Chiara also came home with me to celebrate Passover.

 

My whole family came to my house celebrate passover.
My whole family came to my house celebrate Passover.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s the crazy thing about going to college: your life suddenly becomes split between two worlds–college world and home world. When the two worlds collide, it makes for an interesting and exciting experience.  I’ve already talked about when my family invades my Pomona world during times like family weekend, but this weekend I brought my Pomona world home to celebrate Passover.

My roommate Chiara came home with me this weekend to celebrate passover. We had been talking about her visiting my home, but our plans never came through.  We made sure nothing would get in the way of our plans this weekend.

As we drove closer to my house, I began pointing things out to her. “Here’s where I go to the movies.”  “My favorite restaurant is in this plaza.” It’s such a weird feeling explaining these basic aspects of my home life to someone I’m so close to.  At Pomona, we create our own worlds.  Starting freshman year and throughout the next four years, we make our own life.  We form new “favorites” based on shared experiences while at school.  While these introductions were probably unnecessary, as I’m sure Chiara could care less about where I used to go to the movies, I felt obligated to properly introduce her to my “other” life.

The Passover dinner itself was another crazy experience all together. Not only did Chiara get a taste of my life at home, but she also had the chance to experience the craziness that comes with 25 family members celebrating together in one place.  For me, this was the epitome of a collision of my two worlds.  Here I was with one of my closest friends from college, in the house in which I spent 18 years of my life, celebrating a Jewish holiday with my extended family.  Together we spent the evening going back and forth between answering my relative’s questions about life at Pomona to reminiscing about experiences we’ve had at school.

The amazing thing about leading two lives is how seamlessly they blend together.  I never feel like I have to choose one life over the other.  I’m so lucky to be able to experience so many different things and then be able to share those experiences with all people in my life.  As I get older and begin to form more and more tiny worlds for myself, I can’t wait for opportunities to blend them all together.