For the months since I committed to the day of orientation, the ability to say that I’m a Wellesley Wendy (the perfect embodiment of a Wellesley student) gave me a level of satisfaction beyond belief. I loved the fact that I was defying everyone’s assumption that I couldn’t possibly survive without boys, I loved the prestige that would ultimately come with my alma mater, but most importantly, I loved the fact that Wellesley was going to help me figure out who I am as a woman.
A month has passed since orientation and turns out the school is everything that I’ve ever imagined: women who aren’t afraid to speak up, students who are genuinely interested in learning and siblings who are truly there for each other. It is everything that I’ve ever wanted, except that it wasn’t any consolation for how I was feeling. I hated that I couldn't relate when other first years are talking about how easy it is to connect with other women on campus and I hated that I didn’t fully understand everything that I was learning, but most importantly, I hated that I didn’t love Wellesley. As this guilt carried me through my first two weeks of school, I felt as if I made a mistake, not only in my choice of a college, but also in whom I thought I was as a person.
The strong loud voice that carried me through high school seemed so insignificant when everyone was also that strong voice; the intellectual curiosity that I had always been proud of was nothing but the mere requirement; the woman that I saw in the mirror of my childhood home was no one but a confused little girl afraid to speak up. I realized that, maybe, I wasn’t strong enough for Wellesley and that I didn’t deserve to be here. All of the validations that I’ve once received were nothing but mist of false acknowledgement.
And perhaps that’s all true.
Perhaps I really didn’t deserve it, and perhaps they even messed up my application with that of a girl who cured cancer, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m here. Maybe I won’t become the president or the first woman to be successful in a certain field, but none of that matters, because that was never what I wanted in the first place. At Wellesley, sometimes it is hard to remember why you came or who you were before the Wellesley Effect took over, because we are all so desperately looking into the future to whom we want to become and on the way, we lose track of who we are.
It is true that I don’t have a five-year plan and I don’t exactly know how to fulfill my major requirement, but I do know which dining hall has the good peanut butter and what is the best time for me to nap. Maybe Wellesley only accepted me because I’m loud and passionate about social justice, but by accepting me, they also took in the weird, quirky, food-loving girl who perhaps isn’t ready to be a woman full-time. I like eating ramen, I like taking aesthetic “candid” photos on campus, and I love talking to my family on a dark gloomy afternoon, but that doesn’t mean that I’ve put aside my uncontrollable stupid opinions that always get me into trouble — it just means that I’m more than a feminist and all the labels that deemed me appropriate for Wellesley.
To be honest, I don’t know when I’ll fall in love with Wellesley, but I’m sure it will happen eventually. And if I never fall in love, it really doesn’t matter, because I’m already in love with the campus, the professors, and the siblings who I’ve met and honestly, everything else that matters.
