Independence

In “Everyday Use” Dee is becoming more and more independent and further and further away from her family. Going off to college, I become more independent, but unlike Dee I have stayed in contact with my family back at home. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t talk to at least one person in my family. Normally my dad and one of my brothers is online, so I will talk to them, and call my house later on at night when everyone gets back from work and school. I couldn’t imagine a time where I didn’t have connection with my family. If I was like Dee and abandon my family, I would become a completely different person. I grew up in a large family and am a very “family girl”. I have five siblings, eight people in my family and both my parents come from a family with five children so I have many family members. Much of my dad’s side lives within thirty minutes of my house, and we always go camping together at the end of the summer, spending family time close together on an island in the middle of Lake George. Coming to college, I stay in contact with my friends and family from back home and from all over, but don’t live in the past. I guess there are some similarities between me and Dee, but I would never be completely independent from my family, leaving them behind.

Being number five in my family, I was used to my family getting smaller and smaller as my siblings went off to college one by one, about every other year. As the years went on and our family grew smaller, I started to become more independent, mainly because there wasn’t a lot of family left over to be dependent on. Being from Connecticut and deciding to go off to college all the way in Ohio, I knew that the independence was lurking close behind. I was a two hour airplane or eleven hour car drive away from home, there was nothing that my parents could do now that I’m in Ohio. I am basically asserting my independence by going to school so far away. I will know that my parents are not going to show up at my dorm room and surprise me or check in on me; I am in complete independence. Unlike Dee, I still stay in contact with my family, even though I am still far away. My brother has traveled the same distance away from home to gain some independence, so if there is ever a time that I need to go back to family time, I am able to get into a car and drive to Miami University. If Dee was in this position, she would take advantage and love the fact that she was starting her life over, without her family. She wanted to get away from her life of poverty to become independent and start a new life that she was proud of. As much as I like my home away from home and life separate from my family, where I am able to do things unimaginable if I never spread my wings and came to Ohio, I still can’t wait every time we have a vacation and I am able to go home to see my family.

Living hundreds of miles away from home, I have become very independent, which will be very helpful in my future life, but for now, I will always love to be a little dependent and be with my family. Unlike Dee, I can’t wait to head back to my hometown and add my new values and life experience onto my old self of who I was back in New Canaan.