Take me back...

The brother and step-sister (that's weird to say) have both just started their freshman year in college. With their leaving, they have left behind an old lady (me) who can't stop thinking about my freshman year (6 years ago!). I can only hope their experience is different from mine.

The only way to describe or qualify my freshman year in positive terms is something like, "a learning experience." I feel like everything that could have been working against me was. Being a shy person, I was hoping to hit it off with my roommate and floormates. The chances that I would talk to people in class was slim.

My roommate turned out to be a weirdo and my floor was full of upper-classmen. I somehow ended up in an upper-classman dorm. My floor had 3 or 4 doubles and all singles. Bad news. I joined a sorority but had a hard time going to any social events (I didn't know anyone in the sorority and my "pledge mom" was a non-joiner who eventually left the sorority). In short, I made not a single friend.

I had fun when my high school friends came to visit or when I visited them. Some of my high school acquaintances went to the same college as me, but it was really hard to keep in touch. And we were all really different - I went out with them a few times and did have fun...but it somehow wasn't possible to be real friends. Plus, I was desperately unhappy in my dorm and had a hard time working up the energy to want to go out.

Anyway, yeah. Freshman year, not so great. It got better, A LOT better. And I still have friends from college who I hope to have forever (all from the sorority that I did manage to stick with).

Part of me wishes I could go back, have better luck with my dorm assignment. I would be an entirely different person today. I probably wouldn't be as cynical. Possibly not as bitter. Maybe not such a loner (that seems unlikely). But chances are, I'd still be the kind of person that doesn't love to go out. That was firmly rooted in me in high school.

What always strikes me as weird is how vastly different all of my high school girls' experiences were compared to what we expected. I don't think any of us loved freshman year of college. None of us had that year of newfound freedom and wildly inappropriate young adult fun. I think that may be one of the reasons we are still all such good friends. Or maybe it's the reason we were friends in the first place, because we aren't "typical" girls.

Sort of fun, sort of torturous to be remembering that year. But even just processing it all like this is really good...another way to learn from it all...