Building a ‘tolerance to change’ is a lifelong process

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I am no stranger to moving. I was seven-years-old when I moved for the first time from a small town in Illinois to Shanghai, China. A few years later, my family moved from China to Singapore. And after all of that, we ended up in Ohio, where I completed high school.

I built up what some would call a “tolerance to change.” We would live somewhere for a few years, I would get comfortable and make some friends and then when we moved I would slowly lose contact as I made new ones in a new place.

My move from Illinois to China as a young girl was the hardest move of them all — at least that’s what I thought until I left for Syracuse University.

As my parents drove away from my dorm I quickly realized that my tolerance to change wasn’t as high as I thought it had been. It wasn’t that I was comfortable with moving, I was just used to moving with my family.

Each time I found myself in a new house, country or school, my family was there with me. My parents were there for support while my older brother, Max, was always my first friend.

Max was the first one in the family to break our long-standing tradition of going everywhere together when he went to Purdue University a year ago. I missed him immediately, but I had my parents right there with me to make things better.

A year after Max went to college, I began to pack up my belongings for my move to Syracuse.
I was more excited than anything else. I couldn’t wait to meet my roommate in person and the people on my floor; to be honest, I couldn’t wait for my parents to leave so I could officially start my college experience.

But when they did go, I broke down in tears. I sat in my dorm room, my new home for the next year, and realized that this wasn’t like every other move I had experienced — I was doing this one alone.
Two months in, I still miss my parents a lot, but our weekly family calls help to connect us a little more. As of now, my parents are still in our house in Ohio, which I like to call the “base camp” of our family.

With his car on campus, my brother Max could make the few-hour drive back to our home, but out here in Syracuse, I was much further away. I had the opportunity to fly back to Ohio for fall break, but I ultimately decided that while I missed my family, I was going to stay here.

A few of my friends went home over the break, but most of my friends and people on my floor were staying in Syracuse. It could be that I was having some FOMO, but I thought that a four-day weekend would be the perfect opportunity for all of my friends and I to spend some time together.

I think this small choice I made to stay at Syracuse over the break is actually a much larger lesson.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s definitely important to see your family and go back home when you can, but at some point, you have to become your own person.

Being independent is part of what college is all about. Making your own decisions about where you spend your time is important for both becoming self-sufficient and managing your social interactions at school.
One thing I had to remind myself when I chose to stay in Syracuse over the break was that my decision doesn’t mean that I don’t love and miss my parents. I just needed to start becoming my own person and building my community in my new home.

Claire McBride is a freshman Magazine, News and Digital Journalism major. Her column appears bi-weekly. She can be reached at Cpmcbrid@syr.edu.