College Existential Crisis (Proust)

              When I came home for the first time since beginning college, I ate an authentic, traditional soup that only reminds me of all the memories the dish witnessed. I remember my first time eating solid food. I remember one of the biggest fights I had with my little brother. When I ate the soup before, I only thought of it as sustenance through the treacherous trial of high school. After a month of eating DUC food, I really do miss the authentic version and not the DUC version of the soup. The bowl of soup lies on an old wooden table with countless marks and dents from many mistakes and fits. Why am I thinking of all of this? Other people typically say that we become nostalgic for old memories with big changes in life. Marcel Proust surely had the same reaction with his madeleines : “And as soon as I had recognized the taste of the piece of madeleine soaked in her decoction of lime-blossom which my aunt used to give me (although I did not yet know and must long postpone the discovery of why this memory made me so happy) immediately the old grey house upon the street, where her room was, rose up like a stage set to attach itself to the little pavilion opening on to the garden which had been built out behind it for my parents (the isolated segment which until that moment had been all that I could see); and with the house the town, from morning to night and in all weathers, the Square where I used to be sent before lunch, the streets along which I used to run errands, the country roads we took when it was fine.”

                Consciously, I may forget the experience, dreams, worries, and aspirations my younger self held. Food always seeps into our subconscious, almost like a reflex. I automatically experience a rush of emotions and thoughts from the taste of the spiced broth. I practically represent a typical college student experiencing a new life while returning to the changing environment of home. At least the broth will always taste the same. Home is always home, no matter what.