missed your smile
How do you mark the passage of time? By holidays? Number of parties? Number of beers? The length of your hair? The amount of money you earned? The amount of money you spent? The number of pictures you took?
This year has flown by, but I look back from an entirely new place. I began my Vanderbilt adventure with a week at Wilskills where we didn't shower for a week, ate gorp and tortillas and grits like there was no tomorrow, rock climbed, hiked, white-water canoed, rappelled, caved, slept under tarps in the rain, listened to Journey while riding in vans to camp sites, got enough bug bites and bee stings to kill a young child, and then realized that this was the beginning of everything. It didn't seem to matter so much that our hair was dirtier than it'd ever been before, that we snored when we slept, that we got scared when we thought we were going to get washed down the river with the current before anyone could save us, that we didn't have makeup on, that we sweat when we hiked, that we had less-than-perfect stomachs when we went cliff jumping and swimming in our underwear... We didn't register that these would be the people that we'd see a week later walking around in Polos and Rainbows on a campus that would come to be our home. We all shared that week of hell and fun together, and then switched back to the real world where people showered and got dressed up for class and were overly friendly to everyone because nobody knew who was going to turn out to be someone they'd want to know later.
The first three weeks of school were a blur of excitement. I participated in a week of orientation festivities with my 1,500 fellow classmates in order to "adjust" to things. We went linedancing at Wildhorse Saloon, listened to country and bluegrass bands, went to BBQs, hypnotists, learned how to juggle together, cut up during speakers and bitched about how we had so many things we had to go to. But then it was all over and classes started, everyone was still nice to everyone else, you met 300 people a day and couldn't remember anybody's names but you smiled anyway. You put cell phone numbers into your phone to make sure you'd have somebody to each lunch with if you found a cool kid. It's weird the people I remember meeting. It's weird the people I hung out with early in the year but now never speak to. It's weird who turned out to be my best friends.
A semester of studying harder than I ever have in my life ensued, mixed in with weekly hookups and fraternity parties and clinic visits. I thought I was adjusted and loving it, but I was still grasping for something to hold, something that would ground me in this world of newness. There were no familiar faces anywhere I went, no knowledge of the state I lived in, no idea how to get anywhere outside of campus, no clue how the meal plan really worked; and so I called my friends from home. I wanted to tell THEM everything. I wanted that sense of stability. I went back to it, and felt safe for a while, but realized that wasn't the answer.
Sorority recruitment badgered my self-esteem to the point of no return, or so I thought. But things worked out well. I have a group of girls I have so much fun with, girls who are real, who work out without makeup, who play intramural soccer and climb trees and get high and wasted better than anybody on this campus. Girls I can go sake bombing with on a Monday, sit on the porch and talk to about life in the middle of the night, have dinner with on Thursday nights at the house, get dressed up with for country club brunches, and meet up with for lunch on shitty days. I have a Big sis that I absolutely love and a Grand-big that's just as awesome.
I had a crew to go downtown with on Thursday nights, a friend to take notes for me every Friday for the anthropology class that I slept through, and boys to drink with on Saturday nights before going out. I had people to dance crazy with in the hallway, people to go running with in Centennial, people to pig out with at brunch, people to watch movies with in the middle of the night, people to work out with, share magazines with, talk about sex with, go shopping with, take road trips with...
Now it's all coming to a close. I've got one final left to take and it's going to rape me no matter how many chai tea lattes I stay up and drink. I leave on Thursday afternoon and I'm going to cry like a little baby. Lindsey left today and I didn't feel anything, because it felt like she was just going away for the weekend. But then I proceeded to have one of those days I will remember forever and I realized how much I miss her already. Kelly, Dee, Jill, Alexandra, and I wore sweatpants all day, didn't shower, painted our nails and gossiped in the hall, went to Cafe Coco together, watched Chicago and read Cosmo, talked about everything, had an insane dance party, helped each other pack up our rooms a little bit, and just had one of those really real days. I've never felt so purely content in my life.
We're going to load our belongings into our cars and drive hours and hours away from one another back to our old lives that will never be the same again, and have that period of time where we struggle to find out where we fit in the overall puzzle. What's important? What's not? What are you going to miss? What are you happy to come back to? What will people notice that has changed about you? I'm going to have to be okay with the fact that the people I shared nine months of my life with are going to be far away until August. There are people from Texas, California, Massachusetts, Chicago, Philadelphia, Nebraska, DC, Virgina... Every single one of my closest friends is from a different place (minus the TEXAS clan), and therefore, a single trip would not suffice. If only I didn't need to work and I had a car and could travel and spend money like there was nothing else in the world to do. Instead, I will be forced into another difficult situation which will eventually be well worth my while after initial awkwardness and uncertainty and find out who will be there for my first college summer.
I've grown up a lot. I've changed more than I ever thought I would. I've had my eyes opened to a lot of things. I feel like a better, more educated, more patient person. I feel like I have a better grip on what things will never change, what things will always change, and what I'll never be sure of.
Here's to summer.
This year has flown by, but I look back from an entirely new place. I began my Vanderbilt adventure with a week at Wilskills where we didn't shower for a week, ate gorp and tortillas and grits like there was no tomorrow, rock climbed, hiked, white-water canoed, rappelled, caved, slept under tarps in the rain, listened to Journey while riding in vans to camp sites, got enough bug bites and bee stings to kill a young child, and then realized that this was the beginning of everything. It didn't seem to matter so much that our hair was dirtier than it'd ever been before, that we snored when we slept, that we got scared when we thought we were going to get washed down the river with the current before anyone could save us, that we didn't have makeup on, that we sweat when we hiked, that we had less-than-perfect stomachs when we went cliff jumping and swimming in our underwear... We didn't register that these would be the people that we'd see a week later walking around in Polos and Rainbows on a campus that would come to be our home. We all shared that week of hell and fun together, and then switched back to the real world where people showered and got dressed up for class and were overly friendly to everyone because nobody knew who was going to turn out to be someone they'd want to know later.
The first three weeks of school were a blur of excitement. I participated in a week of orientation festivities with my 1,500 fellow classmates in order to "adjust" to things. We went linedancing at Wildhorse Saloon, listened to country and bluegrass bands, went to BBQs, hypnotists, learned how to juggle together, cut up during speakers and bitched about how we had so many things we had to go to. But then it was all over and classes started, everyone was still nice to everyone else, you met 300 people a day and couldn't remember anybody's names but you smiled anyway. You put cell phone numbers into your phone to make sure you'd have somebody to each lunch with if you found a cool kid. It's weird the people I remember meeting. It's weird the people I hung out with early in the year but now never speak to. It's weird who turned out to be my best friends.
A semester of studying harder than I ever have in my life ensued, mixed in with weekly hookups and fraternity parties and clinic visits. I thought I was adjusted and loving it, but I was still grasping for something to hold, something that would ground me in this world of newness. There were no familiar faces anywhere I went, no knowledge of the state I lived in, no idea how to get anywhere outside of campus, no clue how the meal plan really worked; and so I called my friends from home. I wanted to tell THEM everything. I wanted that sense of stability. I went back to it, and felt safe for a while, but realized that wasn't the answer.
Sorority recruitment badgered my self-esteem to the point of no return, or so I thought. But things worked out well. I have a group of girls I have so much fun with, girls who are real, who work out without makeup, who play intramural soccer and climb trees and get high and wasted better than anybody on this campus. Girls I can go sake bombing with on a Monday, sit on the porch and talk to about life in the middle of the night, have dinner with on Thursday nights at the house, get dressed up with for country club brunches, and meet up with for lunch on shitty days. I have a Big sis that I absolutely love and a Grand-big that's just as awesome.
I had a crew to go downtown with on Thursday nights, a friend to take notes for me every Friday for the anthropology class that I slept through, and boys to drink with on Saturday nights before going out. I had people to dance crazy with in the hallway, people to go running with in Centennial, people to pig out with at brunch, people to watch movies with in the middle of the night, people to work out with, share magazines with, talk about sex with, go shopping with, take road trips with...
Now it's all coming to a close. I've got one final left to take and it's going to rape me no matter how many chai tea lattes I stay up and drink. I leave on Thursday afternoon and I'm going to cry like a little baby. Lindsey left today and I didn't feel anything, because it felt like she was just going away for the weekend. But then I proceeded to have one of those days I will remember forever and I realized how much I miss her already. Kelly, Dee, Jill, Alexandra, and I wore sweatpants all day, didn't shower, painted our nails and gossiped in the hall, went to Cafe Coco together, watched Chicago and read Cosmo, talked about everything, had an insane dance party, helped each other pack up our rooms a little bit, and just had one of those really real days. I've never felt so purely content in my life.
We're going to load our belongings into our cars and drive hours and hours away from one another back to our old lives that will never be the same again, and have that period of time where we struggle to find out where we fit in the overall puzzle. What's important? What's not? What are you going to miss? What are you happy to come back to? What will people notice that has changed about you? I'm going to have to be okay with the fact that the people I shared nine months of my life with are going to be far away until August. There are people from Texas, California, Massachusetts, Chicago, Philadelphia, Nebraska, DC, Virgina... Every single one of my closest friends is from a different place (minus the TEXAS clan), and therefore, a single trip would not suffice. If only I didn't need to work and I had a car and could travel and spend money like there was nothing else in the world to do. Instead, I will be forced into another difficult situation which will eventually be well worth my while after initial awkwardness and uncertainty and find out who will be there for my first college summer.
I've grown up a lot. I've changed more than I ever thought I would. I've had my eyes opened to a lot of things. I feel like a better, more educated, more patient person. I feel like I have a better grip on what things will never change, what things will always change, and what I'll never be sure of.
Here's to summer.