The Living Room Sofa
When you think of your family living room, what are the first things that come to mind? The obvious being the way it looks - T.V., couch, coffee table, family portraits; but also the events that took place in that space as well. Christmas morning, watching movies with your family, awning over how cute the dog/cat is, etc. However, hearing your mom say “they found cancer” while sitting on the couch on a crisp summer afternoon is unfortunately one of my more recent memories created in my family living room, and one I hope not too many other people relate to.
I had attended the local Public School in my hometown, Ludlow, MA, and had committed to spending my four years following High School at Springfield College just twenty minutes down the road, with the hopes to pursue a career in Speech-Language Pathology (CMSD, SLP). Still wanting to embrace this chapter of growth independently, I decided to live on campus. Fast forward to March of the year twenty-twenty, when what we all thought was an extended spring break actually turned into an almost two year long pandemic, I left my dorm room not knowing it would be one of the last times I was ever on Alden street.
Ironically, reading these emails from my College about our spring break extension, watching the news and the story of COVID-19 unfold, all while my whole family was staying under the same roof again for the first time in two years, happened when we were all (interchangeably) sitting on our living room couch.
With snow falling outside, silencing the uncertainty of the world changing around us, I quickly had the realization that the plan I *thought* I had for myself was starting to head in a different direction, and it took me a lot longer to accept that. Between finishing my sophomore year of college online in lockdown and finding out my mom has cancer, (breast cancer to be exact), many books were read sitting on my living room couch, with my cat on my lap, acting as an escape from reality for myself. I felt like Matilda; It seemed like after every book I read I found myself thinking that it was the best book I had ever read, until I started another one, and all of those books, as well as the knowledge I gained from them, inspired me to pursue the combination of the two things I found myself most passionate about; teaching (and writing) literature.
Right, getting back to my mom's cancer, my college education, the global pandemic… After I (barely) made it through my semester of online education, I realized that the major I was dedicated to was not what I wanted to do - creating an unavoidable conflict in my head: Do I stick it out at Springfield in hopes my mind changes back, or do I step out of my comfort zone, take a few months off, and follow my dream of being on the other side of the classroom educating others.
Considering I am currently enrolled in classes at Umass, it is not a question as to what I chose to do, but if the circumstances around me were different, I will never truly know if I would be sitting in South College today as an English major at Umass, or sitting in my practicum for CMSD, in Locklin hall, in the center of Springfield. I started to play out different scenarios in my head regarding each decision I could potentially make, but at the end of the day, sitting on my living room couch, I told my parents I wanted to take a semester off, stay at home, and potentially transfer, with the sole purpose of being close to home and slowing my everturning thoughts down.
What I thought was going to be a semester of healing, growth, and positive uncomfort, turned out to be the complete opposite. I regretted my decision the second I saw the first picture of my (old) classmates moving back on to campus, obsessing over the “what if’s” and the “would/could be’s”. However, as time went on and I got a job nannying forty hours a week, I started saving money, bought myself a new car, and continued reading an abundance of books (including my personal favorite, my first read of the Harry Potter series). I repainted and completely re-did my bedroom, with the help of my parents, and I started applying to colleges for the spring semester. As the fall semester went on I started feeling less like I was missing out on things I ‘thought’ I should be doing, but rather started focusing on the new “normal” I had actually begun to really enjoy.
Once I got accepted into Umass towards the end of the fall semester, I finally started to feel like everything was falling into place, especially because my mom had successfully completed her surgery and was starting radiation treatment. Sometimes the plan you thought you had for yourself has a funny way of working out, and the timeline that is laid out in front of you can be everchanging.
Now, in the beginning of 2022, I am living in Amherst Massachusetts while attending in-person classes, I have a part-time job substitute teaching at my local Middle School, and my mom is currently cancer free. Now, when I visit home, my parents and I sit on our living room couch as I tell them about how school is going, work, and other examples of things I am doing that represent the positive progress I have made in the past year and a half, and I would not change my decision if I could do it all over.