(dis)orientation

the building on the right was my first
home away from home.

and so it's September.

many people i know are morose about the 'end' of summer (check your calendar, people—we've got three more weeks!) but i have always loved this time of year. i know i've waxed poetic here before about wishing i could go back to school—like third grade—but this year i decided to revisit one of the more harrowing back-to-school experiences i ever had.

starting college.

Michael and i took a little road trip over the weekend. i was in my usual spot in the passenger seat, gazing out the window at the gorgeous scenery of northwestern New Jersey and central Pennsylvania. at one point we passed a car driven by a girl who looked like she was college-aged, and her car was packed with stuff: blankets, boxes, a TV lodged in the front seat. considering it was the last weekend in August i figured she was moving onto a campus somewhere. and that got me thinking how it was almost exactly fifteen years ago that i was moving into Vander Poel Hall at Hofstra University.

oh. man.

i thought my transition to college would be easy and awesome. i had high hopes for myself and my new life. i was excited and enthusiastic and ready to go... until my parents pulled away in their newly-emptied car.

i have never done well with big life transitions—i've entered each one pretty much kicking and screaming. but this one really knocked me on my ass. i remember bits and pieces of my first semester of college and none are particularly happy. in fact, more than a decade later they still make me shudder. i just feel so much for the girl that i was back then. i'd spent most of my life in a smallish town going to school with the same kids every year. to find myself suddenly amongst a bunch of Long Islanders (no offense, but they were night-and-day different from my friends back home) on a pretty huge campus in a part of the country that was so unfamiliar to me, with no idea what i wanted out of life—i mean, holy crap.

i started out as a theatre major, which was my first mistake. i remember looking around during my first class—Production and Lighting or some such thing—and seeing people wearing 1) all black and 2) berets. this intimidated me. i remember thinking, is this what real theatre people wear? i was likely rocking my forest green wool blazer and jeans with a too-high waistline and one of my ill-advised Meg Ryan-style haircuts.

in other words: i did not fit in. at all.

the only thing that got me through the first week of college was knowing that i'd be going home on Friday for Labor Day weekend.

the rest of the semester was a nightmare. i had a roommate who had a long distance boyfriend and also a part-time job at TGI Friday's. she'd come home from her waitressing shifts at midnight or later—when i was already 'asleep'—and talk on the phone to her guy  for two hours. often times she was crying or fighting with him. most weekends she went to visit him, wherever he was, and while you might think that was a blessing, it left me with no one to hang out with. i think your first-semester-freshman-year roommate is your placeholder friend—the one who bridges the gap until you make real friends.

i had no bridge. making real friends felt impossible.

so i trudged through the days, mostly by myself. my favorite days were the ones when i took the train into the city and saw Broadway matinees. i would go to TKTS and buy a ticket to whatever, eat lunch at a diner in Times Square and then see a show. it filled up the hours and also my soul in a way it desperately needed. so far i hated college and i hated Long Island, but being able to take a train into New York City whenever i wanted was almost a fair trade.

i tried to do real college stuff—pep rallies and football games—but it all felt forced to me. despite our football team being pretty awesome, there were about twelve students who attended each game. i hadn't yet dabbled with the social lubricant called alcohol so partying was not an option.

i remember watching a lot of TV. and at one point, mid-semester, my TV died. or, rather, one of the picture tubes or something inside it died. i had to drag it to a TV repair place in Hempstead and live without it for two or three days while they installed the new part.

dear god.

one night over dinner during Christmas break i broke down and begged my parents not to make me go back. i'd thought it out and i wanted to transfer. Hofstra wasn't for me. they listened patiently and asked me to give it one more semester. if i was still unhappy, then we could look into other schools.

i think it was about two weeks into the spring semester when i met my soon-to-be best friend Kerri, got an awesome new roommate named Geev and switched my major to journalism. after that, i never wanted to leave.

all's well that end's well, i guess. but this story is the reason why, when September rolls around each year, i long to buy pencils and notebooks and a new backpack—all the supplies i'd need for another year in grade school—but i never wish i was heading to college for the first time. once was enough!

mbm