Lilly

I am a college student now! Lo and behold, with nearly a week under my belt, here are my reflections:

I brought exactly five books with me to college: Contact by Carl Sagan, Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, Nine Stories by J. D. Salinger, First Test by Tamora Pierce, and Dune by Frank Herbert. With the exception of the last (which I have yet to read) these books all have something in common: They have taught me how to think, or how I would like to think; how to approach situations; how to come at things from new angles; how to block out internal stimuli that prevent me from functioning my best and carry on. I think that’s important to hold onto, especially when you’re in a new place. The downside is that many of these books have taught me, especially, how to block out my own feelings, which leads me to my second point.

I still have a lot of emotions surrounding religion/faith/spirituality. The two or three times one of the school’s chaplains has taken the stage during a lecture session—be it to welcome us to the school, talk about multiculturalism, or simply to bring our attention to the school’s Center for Religious and Spiritual Life—I have found myself grinding my teeth to hide the tears. I don’t know why! Something about the topic just leaves me more vulnerable than I’d like to be. Last week, I talked a little about the intersection of faith and science and how I am still struggling to find a balance that I can work with, and I don’t know if that struggle will stop anytime soon. My family is not religious—I know I grew up identifying with the term “agnostic”—but in the past few years especially I have found faith appealing. Not necessarily a strict pursuit of a certain religion (although, of course, to each their own) but to have something definite to believe in. Right now, enough is indefinite in my life that last week’s “oh, well, I believe in something!” no longer holds when I need it to. I thought I could let it go without taking action. Now I see that if I want the guidance I thought that notion would offer me, I need to seek out the answers myself. And I can’t let their existence be in question anymore. If anything, I have to believe that those answers are out there somewhere.

I did not cry when my parents left. I almost did—four, five times. But I didn’t. I met my roommate and we went to see a comedian who was performing on campus and I came back to our room and I slept.

I think I am making friends—slowly, excruciatingly, but I am forcing myself out of my comfort zone, I am talking to people, I am making myself vulnerable to them. We’ve all been going to modules about “what matters” at our campus: alcohol safety, sexual violence awareness, diversity of all kinds. Today we also split into groups of six or seven within our orientation groups to discuss what we had just learned and half an hour later two people, including me, had come out to the entire group. I’ve been “out” in some fashion for years and it was still scary! These things are scary! The school I’m going to is heavily liberal and we’re all encouraged to introduce ourselves with our preferred names and pronouns and if anything, I should feel even safer here than I did at my high school—and I was still afraid. But I did it. I talked to the other kid afterward and now we’re planning to go to an LGBTQ event together on the last day of orientation—so sometimes being vulnerable leads to good things. But that does not stop the fear.

I do have my reasons to be happy. I met with my advisor this week, who also teaches one of my classes, and he helped me make all of the changes to my schedule that I had been crossing my fingers for since I received my first tentative outline. In the spring, I sat in on an astronomy class that basically sealed the deal on my attending this school, and now, this fall, I’ll be able to take that same course—from the same professor, no less. Will I be overworked? With three science courses, two with labs, and an accelerated language course—yes, that’s another lab—it’s safe to say that I’m probably in over my head. But here’s another thing I have to believe: I have to believe it will be worth it. ♦