Goodbyes and Hellos

For a place I've been ready to leave for the last six or so years, it was heartbreaking to finally part ways with The Ville. Most moments in the last few days were like cracked and dog-eared photos you keep forever: drive in under a sky splattered with bright Minnesota stars, random but essential trip to ikea to shop for dorm furnishings and spend some time with a boy I could spend time with anywhere, volleyball under the blistering midafternoon sun, and cheap bowling with everyone in sepia-toned Saxon Lanes. Everything felt centered and perfect: it seemed crazy I was actually leaving and not coming back. As my parents and I pulled out of our driveway and slowly eased away, I looked back at my four best friends and nearly lost it right there. Why, oh why am I leaving here?

Its college, I kept saying. COLLEGE. "The best years of your life" as they say. Everytime I felt those pesky little doubts sneaking up on my common sense I would will myself into the same mantra: new friends, independence, chicago, college, etc etc. I would gain control of my insecurities when I would get a text from someone that mentioned an inside joke, or a song from a cd that someone just burned for me would start playing and I would lose it. However, as the miles rolled on, we passed less cows and cornfields and more tollbooths and suburbs, and by the time our highway broke the skyline of chicago I was able to hold down most of the ache I felt. I refocused my mind on the most looming reality in my life: moving into my new home.

While most people are most concerned about the size of their room, the quality of the beds, and the best living arrangement, the part I was most focused upon on my move in day was if I had brought too much stuff. I made my parents wait ten minutes while I consolidated and rearranged my trunkload of luggage until I thought it looked the least likely to garner annoyed looks from the move in staff and my fellow freshmen. Nonetheless, I still believed I was going to arrive on campus with a reputation as an unneccesarily overpacked diva. As the block count went down, my side effects of nervousness went up. Sweaty palms (shit I have two overstuffed suitcases), dry mouth (why did I bring that extra mug??), heart pounding (was the fourth sweatshirt really necessary?!). As we pulled into the move in driveway I was brainstorming clever replies to the grumblings of the movers and the stares of my peers. After greetings from the dean and the priest on campus (my first experiences as a student at a private school...quite odd), we stopped next to the inevitably neon-shirt clad move in crew and popped the trunk. I immediately sprinted out of my car to the slowly rising door and said "Okay you really have to watch out because there is a soccer ball and volley ball that is about to fall out of the bags here so I should really catch those before they fall because I brought too many suitcases (imagine continuous babble)" and braced myself for a disgusted look and an exasperated sigh as I fumbled around with my hordes of luggage. However they simply said, "Don't worry! We'll take care of it, just go over to the registration table and your stuff will be in your room in about 15 minutes." Wait what? My obviously irrational fear of dejection because of my overpreparedness became self aware and bashfully excused itself from my mind.

After checking into my room with an equally friendly and helpful move in assistant, I got on the elevator and was shipped up to the 8th floor. "818, 819...820," and I was at my door. I smoothly turned the key, opened the metal door and stepped into my home for the next year. Plain white walls, flat neutral carpeting, and sturdy wooden furniture decorated the small room, but a huge window opened it up to the city I now inhabited. A minute later my roommate knocked on the door, we hugged, met each other's parents, filled the room with luggage, brainstormed countless ways to arrange the beds, and unpacked all in a fashion worthy of a fast forward montage that always seems to accompany move-in scenes in Hollywood. And that was it. I was moved into my home for the next 8 months

That night I ate dinner with my parents at a local Thai restaurant- a last family meal before they headed back to the Cities. This summer it seemed we had a bit of a push and pull relationship, but usually when there is a major change in a family's daily life its hard to make it through without a little friction. That being said, the last few days were a good send off. The goodbye was short and sweet, we exchanged hugs and I-love-you-keep-in-touch-s in the pull through usually reserved for shuttles to downtown. Again, in true Hollywood fashion it started raining harder and harder as they drove away and I hurried back to my dorm, a cliche but genuine mixture of tears and raindrops on my cheeks.

And with that I was officially a college student. The next few days were like a constant meet-and-greet where any location goes. Elevator rides, random floors, the ashtray, the el, looking for pop at one in the morning, simpson dining hall, and a trip to the hookah bar just to name a few. Every day warranted another couple learned and forgotten names and a few friends who have stuck for at least the week and a half I've been here. The one thing I've noticed is it is extremely hard to be alone here and not feel like you should be out being social. Everytime you would just love to crawl into bed with an episode of Flight of The Conchords (by the way- my new favorite show. Every time I see some indie/hipster kid on campus I can't help but imagine them with New Zealand accents and it makes their obnoxious I'm-too-cool-for-this attitude so much more tolerable) you can't help but wonder what friends are being made without you. Eventually I'm sure this feeling will die down, but for now my extrovertism is on overdrive.

And with that, my college experience has officially begun. Aside from daily texts/skypes with Ville kids, I've said au revoir to life in the Twin Cities and have exclaimed salut! to new friends and adventures in the Windy City. Though its only been a little over a week I feel like I'm just about acclimated to this new life. But that being said, its only been a little over a week. Who knows what the rest of this year will bring? Ooh the intrigue...

The Countdown

So. I'm going to college in four days.

When the hell did this happen?

It seems like two days ago I was a strapping young junior, fresh faced and confident ready to embark on the process that would determine the next four years of my life but curiously, before I even realized it, everything started moving faster and faster and then I was sucked into a hurricane of college tours, AP grades, common application, standardized testing scores, college board, 17 drafts of the same bad essay, acceptance and postponing, financial aid stress, final decisions then POOF June 5th hits me in the face and I'm officially done. Suddenly I was spit out on my butt feeling bruised and battered but ultimately triumphant that I had survived four years of hell, and was ready for a relaxing summer before entering the next stage in my education. I stood up, dusted off those last crumbs of high school, and sauntered into summer.

Summer was as summer is. Work, endless grad parties, road trips, tan lines, and free arby's roast beef sandwhiches (plus a million other little details) worked themselves into a comfortable rythm that seemed to transcend time and delay the future. Yes, I'm going to college X I'd say, Yes, I'm excited but a little bit nervous, Yes I'm planning on studying X, Yes, I think it will be interesting. But even as I constantly affirmed the fact I would be leaving in three months, to me it just sounded like words without any concrete action behind them. I look at the tidy 3x5 foot area in my room that is packed with everything I will need for the next semester and it seems so unreal that I will actually be using any of it. But I will, I know I will. I just can't believe that time is actually here.

And even though I've been looking forward to this moment since I was 13, as the days-until-Karis-leaves countdown gets lower, I'm getting more and more anxious about leaving. I feel like I've finally found a life I enjoy and now I'm moving onto a new one that I am completely mystified by. I haven't the foggiest idea what college will be like. Literally I try to imagine my life in college and my mind bombards me with a million images of "Animal House", "The House Bunny", and the pictures off brochures from 37 different colleges. I know enough about college to know that the reality of a place is rarely what is advertised, but that is all I have to base my opinion off of. I'm the kind of person who doesn't like to not know what she is getting into: I'm paying a good chunk of cash for this place and what in the goddamn world am I supposed to do if I hate it? I'll have abandoned the happy life I have now for a meager existence as one of those kids who stays in their dorm 19 hours a day only to come out for meals and classes because they are so depressed they reside in such a hateful place. Okay maybe I'm too social for that dramatic of a change to occur but what if I always have that small feeling of regret at not choosing a better school for me eating away and corrupting my mind for the next four years? That kind of feeling is the worst because it taints every experience and every new friend, whispering "You could have better, You made the wrong choice, You screwed up...". And I know, I know, everyone loves college, you will like wherever you go etc etc blah blah blah. But what if I'm the exception?

Now don't get me wrong, I do feel like I picked the right school for me. Its smack dab in the city (Chi-town!), it has a beautiful campus, a great communications school, and a lot of opportunities I'm looking for. My roomate seems normal and nice and easy to live with (not nearly the tattoo/piercing/weed obsessed or clueless/bland/boring roomate horror stories of some of my friends) plus I'm living right in the middle of what is known around campus as the "fun" dorm, and one floor below one of my good friends. I feel like I'm setting myself up so even if I stumble around this first sememster I'll have a couple strong hands around to keep me standing.

And I know everyone has these doubts: bring up college around my friends and it becomes a screaming competition of who-is-more-screwed-and-terrified. So while my fears are probably unwarranted and irrational, they're probably the same fears as the other million soon to be college freshmen out there. We're all confused and frustrated and excited and nervous and just ready to finally move on to the future.

And in four days that is what I will be doing.

When the hell did that happen?