What is the first memory you have from college? What's your first distinct memory? Was it meeting your roommate for the first time? Was it walking in and realizing that this dorm was way smaller than you thought it would be?
If I were to come up to you and get in your face and ask you, what would you say?
I remember the fear and the unhappiness I first encountered when I was here. Dark, I know. But it really is my first prominent memory of freshmen year.
I woke up on the second day of being here, and looked outside. I remember thinking I was dreaming. Because what I was seeing outside wasn't my front yard. It wasn't my home. It wasn't my room. It was all wrong.
I remember starting to cry, and realizing that I couldn't just walk out of my dorm room and hear my dad making bacon in the kitchen. I couldn't watch my mom drink her coffee as my dog sat comfortably on her lap; I wasn't home, UConn wasn't my home.
I got out of bed that day after I collected myself, being careful to not wake my roommate, and I took a shower. I remember turning the shower on and looking around. This was my reality. This dirty, old, small communal shower was my reality for the next nine months. And I really didn't want to accept it.
In the few days following that, poison ivy overtook my whole face and made me look like a swamp monster. My eyes were swollen shut, and my cheeks looked like a hamster's after they stuff them with food. It was graphic, to say the least. I ended up having to go home because the infirmary refused to prescribe me the medicine I needed. They also tested me for a million and one diseases because they refused to accept that it was, in fact, poison ivy. So it's safe to say I was a tad disheveled the first week or so of being here. It was a hellish time, but it's a fun story to tell. And a funny picture to look at.
Obviously my experience got better after this sad first week or I wouldn't still be here. I'm not upset that my first prominent memories of college are these ones. Yes, they're pretty depressing, but as I said before it's a good story to tell. And it's a good story to laugh at. I even used it as a speech topic in my public speaking class (it got lots of laughs in case you were wondering).
It's very strange to think how fast things change. And how fast humans can adjust to their surroundings. It's hard to believe that two years ago I was crying in the shower. Because I love where I am, and I love who I've become, and I love the life I've made for myself here.
As the Avett Brothers sang in their song "Down With The Shine," "Things change and get strange, with this movement of time. It's happening right now to you."
One moment you'll be crying in a communal shower, and the next you'll be questioning what you were even upset over in the first place.
College goes so fast. So take a moment to slow down and think: what is the first memory you have from college?
