Soymilk Changes

Winter Break Post 1 - December 21, 2007

Just about a week after I wrote my last post, I realized I was wrong. Things have changed. It’s not that coming home is any different or that my role when I come home has changed. As cliché as it may sound, it is me who is different. I know it’s all part of growing up, but it’s still strange. For the first time, I feel a bit of resistance. It’s not quite so easy as I thought. I’m not the exact same person I once was so it’s impossible for me to go right back into the shoes I wore at home.

I’ve become partial to the little boxes of vanilla soymilk they sell at the dining center. I’ve never had any soymilk until this year, but the vanilla at least is tasty and I like it. My family doesn’t drink soymilk. On our farm we have cows. We drink real milk. I told my father about my newfound appreciation of soymilk and he stared at me. A look in his eyes made me realize I have changed. It seems like such an unimportant thing, me liking soymilk, but it represented more. In the eyes of my father, the person I think knows me better than anyone, save perhaps Ariel, there was a mixture of confusion and shock. “Who have you turned into?” my father asked jokingly. While on the surface, the situation was hardly worth notice, there were undercurrents that I continued to think about long after the discussion had changed course. The simple conversation turned into a moment of realization that I have indeed changed, there are things about me my father doesn’t know now, and I’ll probably only change more as time goes on. I felt a strange sadness, almost a sense of loss. Life apparently only gets more complicated as one goes along.