Moving away from home is scary. But then bit by bit you learn how to make decisions on your own. Every day we manage to conduct our lives and ourselves as autonomous individuals. The nest gets smaller and smaller in the distance. But then flu season hits. And, at that time, calls to mom made by scared and weepy 20-year-olds can be heard throughout the land - yes, Mom, I promise I did get my flu shot. No, Mom, I swear I'm not lying.
I recently experienced my first flu away from home. I have had colds away from home and worked my way through the stuffy noses and sore throats. But this was a whole new level of sick. As my fever rose and my body ached, I once again became the five-year-old girl who insisted that "The Sound of Music" (1965) be popped into the VHS player at any sign of illness. Since then, I've been pretty much convinced that "How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria" and a generous portion of tapioca pudding is all you need to regain your health.
But there I was, so far away from home with none of the above. I started watching "West Side Story"(1961) in the hopes that a musical of a different name - but that still contained a heroine songstress by the name of Maria - would help my symptoms go away. I had no such luck. Yet luckily for me, even in the absence of my parents, I am not lacking a support system. Armfuls of fruit swiped from Dewick showed up at my bedside along with stories from the outside world, because sometimes missing even one day of social interaction can seem like an eternity.
Several calls to my parents and episodes of "Girls" (2012-present) later, I started to feel better. I also never knew about grocery delivery services until this point. My dad mentioned he called to have a thermometer and a few things delivered. I wasn't really sure what he meant and was expecting for someone to pull up in an old Camry with "Rite Aid" plastered on the side of it and hand me a small plastic bag. Instead, what pulled up was something analogous to a moving truck. If there hadn't been a logo on the side of it that looked somewhat legit, I probably wouldn't have approached a big moving truck after dark, but none of my internal alarms were going off. I approached the truck, and I was then handed a bunch of bags stuffed with fruit, cold medicine and, of course, tapioca.
For me, being sick away from home is one of those things that reduces me to the kid I was before I started to gain my independence. Just having the presence of my parents around when I'm sick is enough to make me feel better and to keep me from making rash decisions like getting a Twitter account - something that I blame on my immuno-compromised feverish state. But it's nice to know that, away from home, I feel like I have a group of people supporting me - even in my flu induced tweeting endeavors (by the way, my follower-to-following ratio is way off). It's nice to know that even when I'm all the way across the country from my family, I have one here that is like having my own viewing of "The Sound of Music" and a little bowl of tapioca.
Eva Batalla-Mann is a sophomore majoring in peace and justice studies and community health. She can be reached at Eva.Batalla_Mann@tufts.edu.
