One Last Day in Paradise

It’s the strangest feeling in the world, that feeling of being on the cusp of a new life and new adventures but without yet having taken that all-important plunge.  Like a little kid sitting on the edge of a swimming pool, unsure whether the safety and security of a solid footing and ready oxygen are worth sacrificing for the free and weightless joys of the deep end, I can only hope that my parents’ loving guidance, my happy situation at home, is a fair trade for my own college experience with all its opportunities for both freedom and failure.

This is moving that somehow manages to be both more and less difficult than my norm.  I sometimes catch myself treating this packing exercise as a trip to summer camp, a weeks-long vacation I’ll be returning from before too long brimming with stories to tell and experiences to cherish.  But unlike summer camp, I’ll never be coming home to the same house I’m leaving.  I’ll always be my parents’ daughter, my brothers’ sister, but I’ll never really live with them again.  But at the same time, I’m leaving most of my things here to await my return.

I’ve become something of an expert in goodbyes.  But in moving, I’ve never farewelled my family.  No matter who or what we left behind, no matter what new situation we found ourselves in, moving for me has heretofore been a group effort.  We as a family all moved together.  Monday morning I move alone.  How does one farewell family?  With the same resigned equanimity I have employed leaving behind best friends in the past?  Or ought the egress from the “nest” be heralded with a more emotional sort of adieu?  In my experience, goodbyes are most easily born when terse and matter-of-fact.  “Well, that’s it then.  I’ll miss you.  Take care.”  Add an “I love you” to a close friendship.  Done.  Goodbye Mom, Dad, Galen, Jared, Ryan.  I’ll miss you all.  Take care.  I love you very much.”

Just as every cloud is said to have a silver lining, I’ve found it also tends to be true that every piece of silver has that one spot that polish can never quite free from tarnish.  There’s a dark, shadowy corner in every light-lit landscape, and that’s where there be dragons.  Beginnings must be built from the wreckage of something else’s ending.  Becoming Monica the adult means Monica the child must make way.  Destruction is always painful.  Monday morning, the most compromising blow is dealt to my childhood: moving away from home.  Wednesday morning the foundation is laid for my future as an adult: I move in to college.  Let the construction ensue.

Countdown

There’s a countdown on my whiteboard marking eleven more days.  Is it a countdown of excitement, or one of dread?  Ask me now, ask me later, who knows y if I’ll answer the same way twice.  I’m sitting on a soft, queen-sized bed in a huge room painted the colors I chose.  To my right, all my beloved books are displayed on a ceiling high bookshelf with various accoutrements I’ve acquired over time.  My dorm room will be small, bare, cramped, filled with the essentials and shared with another.  I spent this afternoon floating in neck-deep sea water, eyes closed against the sun, warm waves lapping gently across my face.  I somersaulted in the ocean and brushed against the smooth sand.  I sang at the top of my lungs with a smile on my face, and danced in the waves in a bikini, unashamed in the knowledge that I was alone and unobserved.  My face is red and my body brown.  I showered in a private bathroom redone not six months ago.  I have my family around me, my brothers, my mother, my dad will be home soon.  Pretty much perfect.

But however perfect it might seem, the truth is that it doesn’t feel right anymore.  After eighteen years, the natural instinct to leave the nest, that age-old urge to leave home and strike out on one’s own is now fully developed and finally attainable.  I have a life sprawling ahead of me, a path at my feet that will carry me away from my family toward a future of my own.  As much as I love Florida summer, I find myself almost wistful for Michigan winter, because it already feels like my life.  That’s me, the pale college student in fluffy pants, rather than the bronze high schooler in shorts.

I want to start my classes.  I want to wake up early, stay up late, work on homework.  I want to meet my professors and get to know my classmates.  I want to go out to eat and I want to skip meals.  I’m ready to move on to the next great adventure before me.

Of course, I’ve got a lot of room cleaning before that can happen.  That’s what this week is for!

Tips for Incoming Freshman

My younger brother is starting high school this year.  He got a letter from the high school headed "Tips for Navigating High School."  Reading through the list, I almost laughed.  It was all so simple, so common sense.  "I know you're feeling overwhelmed," the principal wrote.  I thought about how easy high school had been, how little those kids had to be afraid of.

My college orientation was last week.  For two days we went to workshops, lectures, informing us how to best navigate college, quelling some rumors and verifying others.  College is different from high school, they said.  Don't be so complacent that you don't work.  I have to admit, I started feeling concerned.  Maybe college will be harder than I thought it would be.

But just like the transition from middle to high school, the transition into college will take some work, but will soon be as natural as high school became.  There's no need for anxiety; it will all become familiar.

To be honest, I loved the orientation.  I loved meeting my classmates and knowing we were all strangers to one another.  Everyone was friendly, everyone wanted to make friends.  We all sought something in one another that we held in common.  Major, hometown, books, movies. Everyone wanted to fit in with everyone else.

I loved the campus, small and cozy and isolated, with plush green lawns and picturesque trees and flowers.  Old brick buildings that all looked the same, all with Dutch names I still can't quite keep straight.  Fireflies glittering everywhere when the sun went down, like a fairy story.  Even winter is beginning to hold less fear, as I consider snuggling beneath blankets with steaming mugs of tea or hot chocolate, surrounded by friends in the snug little dorm rooms, wearing my softest, fluffiest pants and socks.  The more I look forward to college, the more I find to look forward to.  Classes, friends, camaraderie, coats and hot chocolate, comforters, weeping willows, study abroad...

I leave for Michigan in 25 days.  It feels interminable.  But then I remember that going to Michigan means leaving home.  Leaving my parents, my brothers.  Leaving my devoted cat.  Leaving my huge room with its view of the Intercostal.  Leaving the south where the summers are sweltering and the winters mild.  Leaving the beach I love so much.  Leaving sweet tea and grits and buttermilk biscuits in creamy gravy.  Bittersweet.  But worth it.

To the class of 2015, whether entering high school or college, we have a lot to look forward to, these next four years!