Strength

About going to college and how I needed to be strong to get through my freshman year.

 Strength

 

It seemed like yesterday when my parents drove me to college, but it was many years ago. I didn’t know what to expect because I never visited the school. I knew that it was a small girls school in upper New York state situated about thirty miles north of Ithaca, the home of Cornell and Ithaca College. It was literally directly across the street from Lake Cayuga.

 

My father insisted that I apply to all top schools. My grades were good, and I was smart, but the competition was tough. I got into one school, Russell Sage in Troy, New York. My father told me he didn’t want me going to a city school. I asked myself, “Don’t I have a choice? I’m the one going to college, not my father.” The answer was, “No.” My father was in control. I was lucky (I later found out I wasn’t so lucky) I heard about this college when I was visiting a friend at Cornell. I applied and was accepted.

 

Applying to colleges would have been easy if it weren’t for my father, but the thought of college frightened me. I wasn’t ready to be out in the cruel world, but my chronological age dictated what I had to do.

 

 I had no idea what type of college I wanted. I finally figured it out. I wanted one like Ithaca College. The campus was beautiful, and the curriculum was good, and it was coed. The town had many restaurants, bars, and cafes; and it catered to the students. Why hadn’t I applied there? Because I never heard of it. By the time I found out about it, it was too late in the year

 

 I also didn’t know what courses I wanted to take. I was told I wanted a liberal arts program. That wasn’t true. If I were to go to college today, I would major in astrophysics. But what did I know then? I was so young.

 

After five hours of driving, my parents and I reached the college. The town was devoid of everything but for a small inn; no movie theater, no cafes, no restaurants, no pizza places. I lamented, “This isn’t for me.” I could feel my anxiety mounting at the thought of staying there for the school year.

 

The campus was beautiful, but there were only a handful of buildings. “Oh, boy! What did I let myself in for?”, I asked myself. But it was too late to turn around and go home, or was it? If I had been driving, I would have turned around.

 

We went to the dorm. I met my roommate. I walked around the campus with my parents which took only ten minutes, and then it was time for my parents to leave. They had a long drive ahead of them. I wanted to say, “Don’t leave me here. Take me home,” but I didn’t.

 

That year was the worst year I ever had. The courses were boring, and were a repetition of last year’s courses. I soon found out that a girls’ college in the sticks wasn’t stimulating, and many of the girls had small town values, including my roommate.

 

 I disliked everything about that college but the food. That was great! The dining hall was beautiful. We sat at long tables and were served. I felt like a queen.

 

I spent most of my time in the library. When I wasn’t there, I did my homework in the dorm. To prevent boredom, I would wander the halls of the dorm peering into the rooms. If the girls weren’t doing their homework, I would go in and talk to them. I felt like the loneliest person on the planet.

 

 Once a month we had a dance at a boys’ college. How can you get to know someone in two or three hours at a dance? You couldn’t!

And for months at a time, there were no boys in sight. Teenaged girls love flirting with boys and partying and having fun. I kept on saying to myself, “I’ll be out of here soon.” That thought got me through the long winter.

 

I colored my hair every month, and ate a lot. I did my homework because it was expected of me, not because I liked the subjects. The other girls who also came from the metropolitan area left by the second week. They couldn’t take the solitude, the monochromatic world of snow and trees devoid of color, and the lack of stimuli. There was nothing exciting there. But I stayed for a multitude of reasons:

I wanted to get credit for the year.

I didn’t want to go home defeated.

I didn’t want to be with a father who was disappointed in me.

 

The snow stayed on the ground through May.The wind from the lake blew me to my classes. It snowed and snowed and snowed. Every other day there was a blizzard; a mixture of snow and hail which stung my face. I needed a soothing facial but there were no beauty parlors nearby. I wanted to get away, but cars weren’t allowed on campus. I was stuck there for the foreseeable future. If I had been a cross country skier, that year would have been more bearable.

 

 I was strong for staying there that year, but I didn’t give myself enough credit for how strong I was. You know how something doesn’t feel right for you? It’s a gut feeling. Attending that school didn’t feel right. After that experience, I always trusted that feeling. And if friends tried to negate it, they were ignored.

 

When I came home for spring vacation, I informed my parents that I wouldn’t be returning to New York the following year. I was accepted at a university of my choice, and it was coed and it wasn’t out in the sticks. I would be dating and having fun. I couldn’t wait to get there. I found out that it wasn’t exactly the school I had hoped it would be, but it was much better than the previous school, but that’s another story.

 

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Author's Note

comment on grammar, content, if the story was interesting, the dialogue and whatever else you wish to comment on. Thanks.

Reviews

[Silvanus Silvertung]

I like it. It's well written and detailed and pulls me in enough.

I'm left at the end wondering what I'm supposed to get from this piece of writing though. There's something here about trusting your intuition and guts and the suffering you hold when you don't, but it seems passing and I feel at the end like I've missed something.

What is this piece of writing trying to do?