My SC Families Away From Home
By Mollie Berg ‘16
This past Sunday, I went over to my friend Jennifer’s house to tan and hang out. First semester last year, I took a one-unit PE volleyball class for fun (which WAS) really fun, and I met Jen, who is one of the sweetest people I know. It turned out, we lived three doors down from each other in our apartment building, and since then we have been great friends! I ended up going to dinner with her family—her mom, dad, brother, two grandmas and one grandpa—at a really beautiful and delicious restaurant.
The amazing day with Jen’s family was literally just what I needed in my life this past weekend. I’ve been in LA and Israel so far this summer—and haven’t really had a lot of time with my own family in Sacramento. How gracious and kind Jen and her family have been to me, got me thinking about the amazing “replacement” families I have made in L.A. Being away from home is hard, especially for me because my family (and dogs) is my everything. It’s so crazy how even a little dose of “home” can go such a long way. Being with Jen’s family, playfully laughing at one another and discussing various topics from travel to chocolate to movies, was the perfect one-day break from “adulthood” and living on my own.
Speaking of my kind of adoptive family in LA, on Saturday I was able to spend time with many of my friends from last semester’s and the future semester’s Daily Trojan editorial staff.
When I joined the Daily Trojan the first semester of my freshman year, I barely met anyone. I spent no time in the office, and when I did visit the office, I was so scared of doing something wrong or even speaking to the upper classmen. However, now, I am going on my third semester of being Design Director for the school’s newspaper. Now, the Daily Trojan office isn’t scary, rather, it is my sort of “home away from home,” as cheesy as it sounds. Joining the Daily Trojan is perhaps the greatest choice I made in college so far because of all the great and meaningful friendships I have made there.
Daily Trojan, like my real-life family, is made up of a bunch of people who are extremely different—with various majors, extracurricular interests and life stories—yet we come together for the big idea: the paper. It’s full of people who work hard to accomplish the same goal, but each contributes something special and unique. Moreover, like my real family, at the end of the day, we like spending time together (and we even hang out on Saturdays in the summer). In fact, I met my big sister in my sorority through Daily Trojan, and some of my best friendships started there.
I guess my point is that it is mind blowing to have so many people in L.A. I can rely on to spend time with me, help me with my problems, and provide me with some sort of familial support when I am away from home. If it weren’t for me taking a volleyball class I would have never met Jen and her wonderful family, and if it weren’t for my mom’s encouragement to join Daily Trojan freshman year, I may have never met my DT family. And then what would I have done this summer? Thank goodness I have my new Los Angeles family to entertain me and provide me that little bit of home.
