It almost felt like doomsday. The impending move-in day approached, and it began to feel more real day after day. I was leaving. It was time. On Aug. 14, I remember turning around and taking one last look at my house before getting in the car to go to the airport. Tears streamed down my face as I slammed the car door shut behind me. I was leaving my whole life behind — my childhood friends, family and high school teachers. My entire sense of normalcy.
Behind the faint music echoing in the car, my mind raced with a whole world of possibilities: what if I don’t make friends in college? What if my high school friends change, or worse, what if they forget about me? I spent my whole life wishing to grow up faster; longing to be older, yearning to skip past what I once thought were the trivial steps of my life and get straight to the good part. When I was 10, cradling my favorite doll, I wanted to skip to
motherhood. When I was 15, desperate to feel loved, I dreamed of the day I would have a husband and kids. Now, at 18, all I want is for time to slow down. Instead, as I stepped onto the plane, leaving everything and everyone I had ever known behind, the inevitable became my reality.
A sigh escaped as I lugged the last overpacked suitcase into the hotel room; I didn’t have that internal sense of belonging; I felt lost and out of place. Though it was the last thing I wanted, the morning came, and it was move-in day. My feet dragged behind me, and every step felt heavier as I approached the door. My door. The walls were naked, the room was bare and every
word spoken reverberated in the empty air. Eventually, finishing touches were done, and it was time to say goodbye. Their footsteps faded down the hallway, and the room suddenly became mine.
I was sure that the first night would be unbearably lonely and terribly sad. To my surprise, my roommate and I stayed up talking and laughing until we couldn’t keep our eyes open a moment longer. She made this new, scary place feel familiar. Over time, she wasn’t the only one. Before I knew it, I had a whole life here with new friends who slowly started to feel like family. I wish I could tell the version of myself from four months ago not to worry so much. To take stock of every last fleeting moment, and not mourn the life I was leaving, but rather welcome the new one waiting for me. I wish I could tell her that she would find friends who feel like home and that even the classes that intimidated me are manageable. But even now, I would be lying if I said a part of me didn’t worry about the distance between my two worlds. I fear that eventually my high school friends will still be my friends, but they won’t be the same; that they’ll become more like people I watch from a distance as they fade into new friend groups in distant places. That the friends I thought I’d have forever will drift away, and that even those who stay wouldn’t know me anymore. At least not like they used to. Still, I’d like to think that
there’s some version of me from the future who already knows how it all turns out, and chuckles when she remembers how much sleep I lost over friendships that never left and bonds that never faded. But, I guess for now I’m just halfway between here and home.
UF PRISM 