This blog is for all the student athletes that are currently overseas, away from home and family during this special time of the year. Fear not my friends, keep your spirits high and enjoy the new experiences that lay in your wake. It is a very exciting time in your life, and a chance to see how families that have lived a world away from you can make you feel as close to home as possible.
I left home when I was 18 years old to set out on my college journey. I had very little real life experience, although I thought that I was aged well beyond my years… as we do! I was living 14 hours away from Mom and Dad, life was going great, and I was standing on my own two feet. I never really thought too far ahead of where I was at in life, and certainly never thought how being that far away from home would affect the holidays that I had grown so accustomed to.
Life away from home went flawlessly throughout soccer season. All the training, games, studying, and socialising made my time very enjoyable, and left me little time to think about being so far from home. As most interstate/international students do once the soccer season starts to wind down, I hit the dreaded “10 week wall!” At that point home seemed twice as far away, I felt alone, the weather was changing and getting colder, and I had much more time to start thinking about all the things that I missed about living under the security blanket of life at home.
Thanksgiving was right around the corner and family was heavy on my mind, and I knew that the holiday was too short to head home so I started to worry about what I would actually do while everyone else was leaving school to be with their loved ones. Only then did one of my teammates who knew my predicament step up and say, “Hey Wade, why don’t you hop in with me and come and spend Thanksgiving with my family?” I happily accepted the invitation!
Off we went, we drove 6 hours to his family’s holiday house in Breckenridge, Colorado. His Mom had a nice warm bed made up for me, and his family all welcomed me in as if I had always been a part of their family. The Thanksgiving feast that they cooked up was amazing, and it was the first time that I had ever seen someone deep fry a whole turkey. We also spent the rest of the break hiking and snowboarding through the Rocky Mountains, making this trip something that has stayed engrained in my mind forever.
It was only a short time after being back at school before we were gearing up to break again for the winter Christmas break. This was a 3 ½ week break that I was planning on being with family for, and bought a plane ticket leaving the day after school let out. Just as school was finishing up for the semester, the entire area in which I lived was pounded with a severe winter storm which left about an inch of ice coating everything from houses and roads, to powerlines and planes, cancelling flights and suspending travel for more than a week. Just when I thought that I was going to get home to my family, Mother Nature decided to throw a spanner in the works and make any sort of travel impossible.
There I was thinking that I was going to be sitting on campus alone for the Holidays, when all of the sudden another one of my teammates that was from the local area came to me with an invitation to join his family for the Christmas period. This invitation came out of the blue, and I had no idea that my teammate even knew what had happened with my travel arrangements. I gladly accepted the invitation and packed up my bags to head to his place.
Upon arriving, his family welcomed me into their home with open arms, all of them very sympathetic of my situation and more than happy to have me joining them for Christmas. Christmas Day came and I was feeling really down because I didn’t wake up in my home, with my family. I walked out into the living room where my mate and his family had already began to gather, and right in the middle of them was a pile of gifts that were all labelled with my name. His Mom had gone out to a 24 hour Wal-Mart and picked me up a few little things to open so that I didn’t feel left out.
We then sat there as one big happy family taking turns opening presents, and it honestly felt like even though I was away from my own family that there was no other place that I should have been. It has been a memory that has stayed with me for many years, and something that I will always be thankful for. I still keep in touch with my teammate and his family after 7 years now, and all of them always ask if I will be joining them again form Christmas in the future.
These two experiences of immense gratitude and hospitality have done more for me in my personal growth and development as a human being than I ever thought they would. I watched two separate families on two completely separate occasions step up to help a kid that they didn’t know, and opened their homes during a special time of the year when family seems to mean more than anything else. They showed me that no matter who you are, and where you come from; whether you are blood relatives, or complete strangers; there are times in life that being around others can make more of a difference than what meets the eye.
These experiences pushed me to be a more independent person, and showed me a side of selflessness that I had never known in my life. These two experiences also pushed me to be a leader, and a person that people could rely on if they needed anything. It was at that moment that I realised there are a whole population of students that didn’t always have the choice of being with family over the holidays, and someone should do for them what two separate families had done for me. Who better than me to step up and provide that!
The next semester I made a point of moving off campus. I rented a 4 bedroom house with a few international teammates, which gave us a lot of room for ourselves but also plenty of room to host others. Every year instead of going home to see family for the holidays, I opened my home to all the students and student athletes that didn’t have homes to go to, and we made our own family for the holidays. We cooked big feasts for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and even set up Kris Kringle’s so that everyone always had at least one present to open. We created our own traditions and there were students that I was able to spend several holidays with, but what has lasted longer than any of that are the memories and friendships that I was able to create and keep even to this day.
For all of those students living away from home and unable to be with immediate family for the holiday season, find comfort in those that surround you. If you don’t have a family to spend the holidays with, find others in your same situation and make one! The holiday season is a time to make memories, and I wish all of you out there the warmest of regards this holiday season.
Much Love to You and Yours!!!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!