First Year Blues

I thought going off to college would be the answer for me. 

Pulling into the campus grounds, our little lemon car bouncing along the road up to the top of the hill, shaded by towering hemlocks and firs, I envisioned my first year like the naïve person I was.

I saw myself writing poetry everywhere on the campus grounds, under sweeping boughs of sycamores and cherry blossoms. I saw myself making life-long friends in the first couple of weeks and acing all my classes, with a few bumps here and there. 

I saw myself doing all of that, my vision tainted by how gullible I was to what would hold me back eventually. 

As for now, sitting in the backseat of my family’s lemon car, I feared the world. I feared the present as much as I regretted the past. 

The only way of coping with that was imagining a future, here within the walls of my dormitory. Ivy spilled down the sides of the brick, a line of sycamores blocking my view of the lawn in the center of campus. Old buildings with crosses mounting spires encompassed most of the private college—the private college that my parents nor I could barely afford.  

The one promising thing that stood out to my parents, among the other colleges I applied to, was that it was predominantly Catholic. They lived and breathed the Roman Catholic church, the Pope, everything. Whereas I hadn’t attended a service since freshman year of high school. 

After moving me in, dollar store bins of instant noodles and Pop Tarts loaded under my single bed, they kissed me goodbye and later would tell me of their tearful ride home. It was only an hour between home, a predominantly Catholic town, to where I remained in the tight confines of my single dorm. 

Eight by ten feet, the popcorn white walls were stripped of any expression. They reflected the heat of the mid-afternoon, the sun bleeding in through the window screen. I made my bed and unpacked my clothes, hanging them up in the cubby closet provided, but kept my eyes from the window and the lawn below. 

Already, I was so sick to my stomach. 

There was no more daydreaming about college. I was here, and here to stay, it felt like. 

I laid in bed that night, as stereos from neighboring rooms pounded through the hallways, and kept my eyes on the ceiling. I held them on the popcorn texture, as the impulse to cry caught in my throat and made it hard to breathe. 

The only thing that made me feel better was imagining coming home that Christmas. I would be enlightened, well-spoken, and more willing to share at the family table. I would be able to hold my own in a conversation. 

My parents’ eyes would shine with pride, lustrous and wide with admiration. My cousins would gawk and stare, wondering where the old “me” had gone, and I wouldn’t be able to tell them. 

I would be a whole new person. 

No more anxieties about the world. No more fear. 

I would just be able to live my life as my own. 

 …

“Ça va?” 

I stare, my eyes straying above the frayed hairs on the girl’s head until they’re on the window behind her. The pane of glass gave out to the view of the main building on campus, huge and immense, while the puny little building my French class was in remained in its shadow. 

I reply to my French partner’s question, nodding my head like it’s mechanically manipulated on strings, “Ça va.” 

“Comment c'est passé ton semaine?”  

I’m at a loss, already. The conversation had barely begun, and I didn’t know how to reply. 

I’m daydreaming. Again. 

I’m thinking about the weekend. I’m thinking about going home to the small town I used to resent. I’m thinking about my parents in our small, ranch style home. I’m thinking about sleeping in my own bed for once and being able to eat three square meals a day, plus snacks, instead of starving myself for the sake of cutting costs. 

Worthy sacrifices, my mother had told me when I had called her just last night. It wasn’t my proudest moment—breaking down while the phone was on speaker, my eyes fixed on the girl in the mirror above my sink. 

I didn’t look like myself. Dark shadows hung under my eyes, my face pale and pockmarked with acne, my hair slicked in grease. Not to mention, the angry shade of red coloring my tear-streaked face.

The weekend couldn’t come any faster for me.

When class lets out, I’m flooring it back to my dorm. I bob and weave through the narrow passageways, the weight of my bag drumming against my back as my pace picks up at the sight of the dormitory doors. 

Like an athlete, I bound up the stairs two at a time. I jam my dorm key into the lock and shuffle down the long hall to my room, slamming the door shut after me. 

I heave a huge sigh and budge open the one window in my cell of a room. The eight by ten dimensions felt almost mocking now. I can literally take five steps from one end of the room to the other, that’s how limited the space is. 

I wipe the makeup caking my face before turning to my phone perched on the edge of the sink, the screen brightening as the single notification surfaces under the glass. One missed call. 

Redialing the number I’ve been waiting for, my mother’s voice comes in on the other end. 

“Hey, where are you?”

“In my dorm, why?” 

“I’m just outside. Come out when you’re ready.” 

The call ends there, and I put down my phone. I load up my laundry for the weekend, run a brush through my hair, before slinging on my bag and pulling on my shoes.

I dash out from the dormitory in the rain. My clothes are soaked in under a minute, my arms clinging to the laundry hamper in a desperate attempt to power through the cold. 

I race to the family’s lemon car, my eyes watering at the familiar sight, and I throw my laundry in the back. My mother comes out to help me. She seems smaller than I remember, more grey hair speckled throughout her ponytail. But she looks happy, she still has those wide green eyes that brighten when she smiles.  

Once in the lemon car, she reaches over the center console to hug me loosely around the shoulders. 

“Ready to go home?” she asks me, brushing back my wet hair after pumping on the heat. 

I nod, all too eager to start the weekend, and she starts the lemon car back up. At first, the engine lags and catches. It turns over and over and I start to think we’d be stuck here in the storm. 

But then, it comes to life and makes the entirety of the lemon car shake off its lethargy. 

I settle back in my seat and watch out the windshield as we turn out of the campus grounds. 

…

“It’s good to have you home, sweetie.” 

“Yeah,” my dad puts his two cents in, peering into my room from behind my mother’s shoulder. “Now, we can actually sleep good at night. Not worrying about you up there…” 

“It’s good to be home.” I smile, not expecting the warm homecoming gestures. Even my sister, a perfect recluse in her own home, had thought to come out of her room to say hi to me. 

The whole day before had been talking to my parents around a dinner table and watching a movie until we were all nodding off collectively.  

Killing the lights, my parents walk off to their bedroom down the hall. My sister’s room across the hall grows dark but I’m still restless. 

I lay down on my pillow, staring up at the smooth, lilac walls of my childhood bedroom. 

I’m thinking about next weekend, and the weekend after that, and the weekend after that.  

It feels like the cycle will never end.