Twenty-three percent of the University’s student body are international students. As a member of this group, I’d say it isn’t the easiest experience. The places I grew up in and the people I grew up with are all 11 time zones away from me. My interactions with friends and family are reduced to check-in texts and “major update” calls. 

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration for me to share that times like Dads Weekend leave me with more mixed feelings than thinking about an ex-relationship. I began to wonder how many students pause to think about what it’s like for those whose families are just out of reach or consider what a weekend with Dad really means when he’s only a few hours — or a world — away?

Honestly, it’s not all that bad. Adulting comes with its fair share of time and energy commitments. I have little to no time left to self-indulge myself with nostalgia. The first hurdle is the bare necessities — cue Baloo from The Jungle Book — which is just making sure I eat and sleep enough. Enough being as much as I can as a college student, burdened with the weight of loans and internships I can never seem to land in this economy. 

Then there’s staying — or at least trying to stay — on top of my classes while also socializing and networking. However, my mindset on all this changes due to the oh-so-novel concept of Dads Weekend.

Last Dads Weekend, I’m pretty certain I holed myself up in my room. One of the few advantages of living at PAR was I didn’t see any more students than I needed to. This was perfect, considering I was trying to not look longingly at the scores of students, many of whom I went to classes or RSO meetings with, walking around with their dads. I was happy for them, but it was a privilege I could not afford. 

My father and I are close enough. Even within the restraints of a culture that restricts how emotionally involved a father is with the family, he did an outstanding job inculcating what I now consider to be values core to my being. I wouldn’t be writing if it weren’t for his encouragement of independent thought.

Even so, being the strong independent girl I so wanted to be, I didn’t think I would develop such a strong yearning to have him here to see the parts of this campus that have been shaping me in my time away from home. 

From the buildings to my favorite late-night walking trails, the buses whose routes I know by heart and the restaurants I have been meticulously exploring, I want to share all the memories they hold. I didn’t even realize I did until I went through my first Dads Weekend — without my dad. 

It’s hard to explain what that emotion is like, or how it creeps up on you when you least expect it from some tiny crevasse in your heart. It’s that same feeling single folks get when they look at couples on Valentine’s Day, looking positively giddy with happiness, basking in each others’ company, and they start to wonder what it would be like if they had that one person there. 

What sort of conversations would they have at that moment? Would their hearts feel a little more full? Would they be a little more happy than you are? Would every disagreement fade in the face of this special little period that’s all for celebrating their relationship? 

And then they wonder when they started feeling these feelings, and they can no longer focus on that one assignment that’s due tonight because all they want is to have that person there, irrationally and beyond reason. This was me last Dads Weekend.

I can’t say what it’s going to be like this year. Maybe, unbeknownst to me, I have developed a sense of peace with the idea that so, so, so many people all around me get to spend that one weekend with their dad in beautifully chilly weather, with fall colors abounding. Maybe I won’t think twice about the fact that he will never get to see my first room in my first apartment and think of how his little girl has grown into a young woman. 

Maybe I am forcing this wishful thinking on myself so much because I know it’s just that — wishful thinking. Because I’m so caught up in ideas and daydreams that realistically cannot happen, I am hurtling toward Dads Weekend with a high chance of being a sad, mopey cactus throughout it.

So I won’t hole up this time. I’ll hang out with friends who have their dads over and enjoy Dads Weekend vicariously through them. I’ll show my dad a tiny bit of how much I appreciate him by wielding the power of Amazon to send him a gift. I won’t even have to go the self-love route of Valentine’s because I still have a person I can give love to and receive love from. 

Dads Weekend can truly be everyone’s to enjoy so long as we choose to focus on the relationships that we do have and find our unique ways to enjoy it. Do what it takes to celebrate the special love we have, not despite but because of the circumstances we find ourselves in. I’ll be first in line.

Naavya Shetty is a sophomore in LAS.

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