thoughts on college, one year later: part 1

Caution: Stream of consciousness, and therefore run-on sentences, abound below. Just saying.

I have to go back to college tonight.

YEAH. BACK TO COLLEGE TONIGHT. My good old alma mater. (What? I’m old enough to call something my alma mater?)

I think I might vomit. No, literally, I think I might. I haven’t set foot on that campus since the day I stepped into my mom’s minivan in my graduation gown with flowers and diploma in tow almost ONE YEAR AGO.

I mean, that was on May 10th, 2009. That over-used and over-heard intimidating number, two thousand and nine, is such a thing of my past. Before, that date was the culmination of my life as I knew it. Now, it seems years ago. Like that year never even happened, like life just skipped from 2008 to 2010, poof, like that.

Tonight, I’ll have to go back. Past the cow fields and agricultural buildings, past the big white church whose daycare program I applied to once, past the lake-whose-name-I-can-never-remember (was it Mirror or Swan?), past the chemistry building and the church and the Student Center that I spent so much time at (planning for our trip to Haiti and holding bake sales and teaching religious education that one semester so long ago), past the crosswalk where a girl was hit and killed one night sophomore year, past the cemetery where I’d smoke pot in the dead of the night freshman year and where a boy and I took that long walk one afternoon, past my old building and that dining hall and laundry room, past the math building I only ever had one class in and past the residence hall where so many freshman pined to live, past the Visitor’s Center where I was once a Student Ambassador before I realized how much I actually didn't like the place and decided I shouldn't be an ambassador for it, past the parking lot where I hung out with a high school friend in his car that very first night of that very first semester and where Spring Weekend began and where I met one of my boyfriends even, past the theater and past the Field House where we gathered for commencement and felt like it was a different realm of the world, past the Student Union and the library and my Arabic classroom building and the art museum and everything else down that way, and finally I’ll turn right at the bookstore and find a spot in the garage and go in to finally buy a sticker that I bought when I was there but lost to put on my car to represent a school that I actually disliked quite a bit but that I want on my car either way, and then leave and probably drive around for at least 20 minutes searching for a spot and wishing for the days when I didn’t mind looking for a spot because I was a student and felt that I was entitled to one anyways.

Now, I’ll just be driving around as a non-student, one of those people who clog up traffic and aren’t sensitive towards pedestrians because they’re not one at all and who feel like they own the place because it’s Connecticut’s claim to fame and it IS a state university, after all.

Why is this so hard for me?

Is it because I don’t feel any kind of personal connection to the place anymore? Is it because I never really felt like I was a real part of that place?

Maybe that’s it. Maybe it’s because I never really felt like I belonged there.

Ask me when I was seventeen, reluctantly applying to colleges only because it was the right thing to do and my mom was on my back about it, ask me what I wanted to do with my life. I, of course, did not know, but I did know one thing: I did not want to go to a large, public university. Six of my seven schools I was applying to were small, Catholic colleges usually located somewhere suburban or rural. This was my safe school. It was my backup, in case I was denied everywhere else.

The thing is, I wasn’t denied everywhere else. I got in. I was waitlisted at my top choice, yes, but other ones, I was accepted to. I had options.

When it all boiled down, though, it came to one thing: money. Money guided my choice. This school happened to be the cheapest option, being a public state school, and also happened to offer me a large amount of financial aid. Which ended up not meaning much, since every year after that it got less and less and now, five years later, I’m still in way more debt than I ever imagined. But I digress. I chose it because of money. My seventeen year old self did not want a large school, or a public school. I even remember Jana asking me one day at one of her family parties, as we got old enough to start thinking about where we’d apply, asking me if I’d ever consider going to a non-Catholic school. I said no. Never. Anything else just wasn’t in my list of choices. Funny how that worked out, though. I chose something (was it really much of a choice?) I wanted nothing to do with. (Now, I did also choose it because it had the major I thought I wanted, but in retrospect, most other schools offered similar programs, and it never really mattered anyways, because I ended up changing my major to something completely different not long after.)

But yeah right am I ever doing that again. Here I was, this young-for-her-age, ridiculously naive, sheltered, formerly-homeschooled freshman girl who knew very little about herself. My self esteem was little to none. And that’s a generous estimation. I jumped on the chance to be best friends with my roommate, simply because she was my roommate, even though in actuality I disliked her quite a bit. I jumped on the chance to be best friends with my neighbors, too, even though I liked them even less. The ones who may have offered any semblance of a real friendship at the time I judged too quickly and immediately dismissed, getting sucked into the opinions of my friends I had already made. Whom I disliked, remember. But they were friends, and I had them, and even if they weren’t great, they filled a newfound void in my life at the time and I gave them my all.

Fast forward two years and those same friends dropped me by the wayside and didn't look back. All along I was realizing they weren’t much of friends, but by then I had already invested so much in them and every other freshman who we started with that summer of 2005 had already made other friends and were seemingly locked in with them, too, and I figured no one would want to add some girl to their repertoire just because she was too desperate that first semester and made the wrong choices. So I stuck with them. To my detriment, come junior year, as I’d later learn.

Boys were all wrong, too. I don’t think there are many freshman boys, if any, who don’t come to college obsessed with their newfound freedom, both sexual and otherwise, looking to see how many girls they can seduce in order to bring back a more impressive number to their friends back home, who are also toying with their new lifestyles. I think I found just about every one of those boys available to me, during college. This is not to say that I slept with every boy I met--no, not even close to that, by any means, but worse: I put my trust in these seemingly nice boys who would entice me to watch movies in their smelly dorm rooms and take shots with me because all the other girls were, too, didn't I see? and then nonchalantly ask for my statistic notes at the end of the night because they were too hung over to get to class that morning and of course I’d do it, because I was really nice and not like all the other girls, wasn't I? But these were the same boys who wouldn’t dream of inviting me to the dining hall on sober week nights or sitting next to me the few times they actually showed up for class or even bothering to ask what was my major, anyways?

I like to think I learned my lesson now, though. Of course I have. In fact, I know I have. And in more ways than just knowing which types of boys to run wildly away from, too.

...to be continued...