I WAS MORE THAN READY to leave high school, if not just to get away from the dorms.
I had gotten a single dorm room that year, after Danielle had graduated. It was a great retreat, but I couldn't get used to it realizing I would have college roommates to come. Still, I had my own space, where I could invite Alexa over if I wanted.
We had met during the athletics period when we both took tennis the previous year. She was hyper and didn't always respect people's boundaries, annoying some of my classmates. I found that over time, those boundaries improved when it was just the two of us. Although she could be a handful to some, Alexa was also really sweet and we enjoyed our time together. We joined the tennis athletic option together and went to the mall on some weekends.
Not that the last week was all bad. Spring traditions were in full swing, such as Fox Day and our own revue. Practicing for it was never that much fun, but getting back from our senior dinner to find the underclassmen ready with the show they rehearsed over the Memorial Day weekend while most of the class was on senior trip, making fun of all our quirks, was exciting. (I was portrayed as a girl who cursed at everyone, since I was one of the few students who didn't. They didn't have a lot of material on me---they didn't for some people--- but it was very entertaining.)
In addition, we also had graduation practice (combined with a very exciting incident where the woman in charge refused to let my very first roommate, a lesbian, wear pants because she felt uncomfortable in them, causing said classmate to call out discrimination) and a candlelit ceremony where a junior presented each one of us with a poster. Alexa made mine.
What I also remember? Watching a lot of Peter Pan. Why I chose that particular movie, I don't know, but I found it on YouTube and enjoyed coming back to it during the last week on campus, after classes were done. I'd love to say something about how it was because I felt I was growing up, but I don't know. Maybe it was just good company.
Honestly, this was one of the better weeks at school.
Still, college was more exciting. I had gone on various college tours over the course of the past year, occasionally getting to miss class. I never wanted to leave them. I was ready to start independence and shed my high school experience forever. After getting into every school I applied to, I would hang the acceptance letter on the awesome bulletin board that came with my single room. So close, but so far. I would end up choosing a college in northeastern Pennsylvania that was two hours from home.
But not everything seemed exciting at the moment.
Days before graduating, I received a devastating blow. While the rest of my class was getting ready to leave for senior trip on the morning of the school award ceremony, I was preparing to spend the weekend with my grandparents instead. The best part, though, was that I was going to see Ben for the first time in four years.
I would watch him, and many other former classmates, graduate from the Quaker high school. About a month earlier, I had constructed a carefully written email explaining why I wanted to go without so much as mentioning Ben---after all, half my Quaker school classmates went there. So it only seemed natural to want to go, right?
Somehow, I won. They let me go! I couldn't believe it! Four years of failed contact attempts later, I would come out on top! All it took was the most nerve-wracking email I'd ever written! I spent the next few weeks alternating between complete excitement and anxiety, often going back to Peter Pan as a distraction.
I was going to see him after all this time. What would I do? Who else would I talk to while I was there? How was I going to deal with his parents? For that matter, would he be okay with seeing me there? This was really happening!
Alas, as these things go, it was too good to be true.
My parents, and probably his, likely hadn't forgotten how I called his house and would hang up the summer after we left our school. On the day of the awards show, my dad had surprised me by showing up to the ceremony and presented me with tickets to see a show called Potted Potter in New York that weekend. I didn't want to go---I had seen previews of the show online, which looked like nothing more than two men goofing around for YouTube likes---definitely not worth the $40 price of admission, but I thanked him anyway. Besides, it was on Friday, the day of Quaker school graduation.
But when I got back to my room after a post-award breakfast, I saw why he was offering them when I saw the email they sent that morning. They no longer felt, all of a sudden, after telling me yes and then discussing it, that going to graduation would not be a good idea. I sobbed. Alexa came to my room and we sobbed some more. What a wasted opportunity.
As I sat under the tent on that gray June day, I couldn't help think that it hadn't yet sunk in. It wasn't a great time in my life, yes, and I was going through an especially challenging period at that moment. In addition to not going to Ben's graduation despite telling some people I was, Danielle missed her flight to my own graduation that day and the weather was just so cloudy and icky.
But it had also gone really fast. Was this what being an adult was like?
After all that nonsense, it was time to start over.
***
On the day before college orientation, we drove up to our Pocono house so we could be a little closer to school and not have to get up at 6 AM.
The next morning was actually chilly despite it being the middle of August, and despite me normally not being a breakfast eater, I couldn't help but scarf down the donut we got in the Dunkin Donuts drive-thru that morning. In those cases, you eat, because it's there and there's nothing else to distract you. This was followed by hours of moving in, with help from our school's brand-new football team. After a very hot ceremony in the amphitheater, the parents left and we were left on our own.
The activities started with everyone in the auditorium. We were about to have our football team compete for the first time ever that season, so the orientation committee came up with a clever theme: "College isn't a spectator sport; get into the game!" Conveniently, recent American Idol contestant Philip Phillips had just dropped an album with the most well-known song being "Home." We watched the orientation leaders dance around and clip as the lyrics played in the background...
Settle down, it'll all be clear/Don't pay no mind to the demons, they'll fill you with fear.../You know you're not alone/Cause I'm gonna make this place your home.
This song would also play a lot on the local radio station over the course of my freshman year. It defined my college experience and even today, I'm taken back to that auditorium when I hear it. I couldn't help getting emotional at the leaders' dorky routine set to music. It was signifying a brand new start in life; real life with a safety net. Keep in mind, too, that I still wasn't over Ben and missed him still. I cringe at that now, but I blame going to an all-girls school. It was melancholy and exciting at the same time.
Orientation itself almost made me cry in a different way. Not only was it terribly HOTâgone was that chilly move-in morningâbut because of the sheer amount of stuff to do. There were three and a half days of technology training sessions, a Day of Service where I was selected to volunteer at an animal sanctuary and hold baby kittens, salsa dancing lessons just to further eat up our day, anti-drug speakers, icebreaker games, and floor meetings. By the time the optional and actually fun activities started, I was tired and in the mood to do no more than Facebook chat with Danielle about the hotness of the Disney Princes.
And then there was mealtime, just as scary as it is for most middle school students. What choice did I have? I exhausted myself finding new people to sit with, none of whom I particularly clicked with, three times a day. It seemed like this school attracted groups of people from the area, all of whom went to high school together and stuck together like glue. These people didn't care to meet anyone else but their friends. As a result, making friends was difficult in the beginning.
My roommate didn't help. Jessica was disgustingly pretty and had probably been popular in high school. People like her and me usually didn't mesh well together in high school, so why now? We lasted a month. She decided she too would rather only share a social lifeâand room life-- with a friend from high school.
There were occasional bits of conversation, but it wasn't meant to be. She grilled me on who I was hanging out with. One day, as I was at my computer, she asked me, with a slight hint of condescension (or maybe odd curiosity), "Are you shy?"
How does a person even answer that?
It didn't really work out, and soon Jessica told me that she wanted to live with her friend from high schoolâsomething she'd only discovered now instead of over the summer. I spent several tearful, frustrated nights behind my dorm on the phone with my dad trying to work out a time to move out. Jessica refused to work with our schedule. She would have none of it; she wanted to room with her friend now. Funny enough, I had actually asked her why they didn't just request a room together to begin with. I never really got a solid answer.
Finally, finally, we worked something out. I hated having to move all my stuff out again, without the help that Jessica had promised. Unpacking would soon become my least favorite part of the college experience (next to coming back from a break in itself. Many students will tell you that they will have trouble falling asleep each night on the first night back. For me, everything just looked different after being away so long. I'm not sure if it was the lighting, or the atmosphere, or just me adjusting. That didn't help. I was always eager to get back into the routine, which took about 24 hours, so everything could appear normal again.)
I lived with another girl named Stephanie, a former marching band member who was definitely not part of the cool crowd in high school. Her friends weren't the "cool" type either, but they were more approachable. I got to know her friend Jake well, and I have fond memories of trying to get him to register to vote for the upcoming election. 2012 also had a unique brand of humor that helped shape the experience: rage comics, Queen-good-Justin-Bieber-bad, Internet-Explorer-bad, and mustaches. When we decorated our door for Halloween, our skeleton just had to have a mustache! (Until it got stolen.) She also liked Harry Potter, which was a plus. She was easy to live with. I knew that it had ultimately been the right choice.
Unfortunately, Jessica may not have been wrong.
College was not the most socially savvy time for me. It wasn't that I couldn't make friends. It was just that I felt...uninspired in the beginning. I had the attitude that I had back in Connecticut school that I could make friends any time, but I just didn't feel like it right then. Of course, I did meet some wonderful people later on.
I also wasn't feeling especially warm toward people. My first few days didn't start off very well, when some girls on the hall snickered at me. Whenever I was forced into a team bonding activity, I found myself rolling my eyes. I just wanted to be left alone more often than not. If someone asked me to join them, I would feel as if I was intruding. I thought I knew how it would play out: they were doing it because they felt guilty, and then they'd either ignore me or talk down to me. Looking back, it would have been nice to take those opportunities.
Regardless of roommates or social situations, the independence made it a great time. I could go where I wanted when I wanted. This was very different than life in high school. No more signing in or signing out on the hall every night. No more Saturday morning work detentions or mandatory sports or curfews. No more specific bedtime and, hopefully, no more psychotic girls locking my friends in basements.
Sometimes, I would learn, it was just nice to walk around campus, especially in the evenings. I relished the quiet, dark air and walking around at my own pace, even when it was cold outside. I would briefly glance into others' rooms and wonder what they were doing. I would also let my thoughts go into freefall. I don't remember what I thought about, but it was relaxing.
The routine of freedom was different too. Typically I would go to lunch after a certain class period. It didn't matter if I had nobody to talk to; I found a wonderful nail polish blog that could be counted upon to keep me company. Kelly of VampyVarnish.com not only had great nail polish swatches, but pictures of her cats and other funny anecdotes. Or, if I wanted, I could just stop by the café, pick up some mozzarella sticks, and retreat to my room and watch last night's episode of America's Got Talent which had been uploaded to the internet.
Classes and room life were separate universes. I didn't get to take much English yet, but I did have a freshman writing seminar with the professor who would become my academic advisor. We watched episodes of South Park, held many debates, and watched our professor scold two boys who sat in front and always talked. Everyone was also more vocal about politics, especially about preferring Obama to Romney. People were always respectful, too.
The freshman year experience class was a must; if you missed a day, you would be required to attend a required academic workshop. This included the added stress of starting 15 minutes after my first class on the other side of campus. Fortunately, the leaders were lenient and it wasn't much work.
The more fun classes would come later in my career, including History of Rock N' Roll, two different Fiction Writings, Composition, Fairy Tales, and even comic books. (Known officially as History of Race in Graphic Narrative, comic book class was a legend among English and History majors, so I had to take it. Unfortunately, it was for 2 ½ hours every Monday night, and it wasn't until I was officially in when I'd remembered that I didn't even like superheroes. Whoops. Still, there was the occasional good discussion, including some highly entertaining roleplay.) Shakespeare was never my best subject, but I had a professor who made it tons of fun.
English classes could wait, but Shakespeare's plays were already busy holding their effect over my life.
Because it turns out that in middle school, the relationship between Ben and I was only just beginning. All thanks to a certain playwright.