Coming Home
Purchase your copy of the Aquinas College Boarding Community's first volume of "Home" here.
The Journey of a Boarder
There's a space in time where we stop helping get the sheep in or climb down from the cattle yards, we get off a tractor or lean the fishing rod up, maybe we put a horse in the stable or a motorbike away and have a last kick of the footy with a sibling left behind, tidy our rooms? Nah... whatever, we always stop and have a good look around.
It's time to get back to school.
Bags are packed, plans are made and goodbyes are said.
The family pets get a squeezing hug or an absent minded pat on the head.
There's always a lecture or two.
Cars pull out and often stop to quickly swing back past the clothesline for a forgotten pair of socks or a dash inside for an 'it was on the bench'.
More often it doesn't and 'a halfway there' realisation is revealed.
Tree lined driveways, winding gravel roads, long bitumen straights, 'planes, trains and automobiles' take us back to our home away from home.
The day between is an anxious one. Stuck in the middle of leaving one home and returning to another.
We always feel better after a day or so with our brothers, comforted by our boarding family.
Learning, experiencing and cared for, this is our other place.
And then we go back.
Come with us on a journey to the places we call home...
Aquinas College Boarding Community
When a new student commences boarding, he brings his own unique story shaped by the special place he calls home.
Home might be a short drive, a day trip on the train or an overseas flight away.
However far they travel, the boys arrive from different backgrounds at the end of their different journeys and come together to form a new community.
They have no idea how this community will shape the rest of their lives.
The unknown can be intimidating. The place that used to be taken for granted is suddenly not there. A place of comfort. A place of normal.
They arrive for the opportunities and experiences they can't access at home, but in doing so they leave behind beautiful and unique places that they can't access while they're in boarding.
Hopefully what they get as they grow up is the best of both worlds.
The combination of these two situations helps these boys grow up to be well-rounded, independent young men with a broader perspective on life than many of their peers who don't experience boarding.
It is very difficult to form friendships quite like the ones made at boarding school. The shared experiences, highs and lows worked through together, and unspoken understanding of what each other is going through.
The places they have come from may be so different, but living and learning together for such a significant part of their lives allows them all to be enriched by each other's special memories of home.
And while the hope is the boys fully embrace the boarding life, home is never far from their hearts and minds, no matter how long it's been since they've slept in their own bed.
It's just when they return, they may see these beautiful images in a slightly different way.
Ross Meadows
Head of Boarding
It's a funny thing coming home. Nothing changes. Everything looks the same, feels the same, even smells the same. You realise what's changed is you.F. Scott Fitzgerald
