When I arrived at college, the first thing on my mind was freedom. Freedom to go out and do what I want, when I wanted to and come home at whatever time I pleased. I spent all of high school anticipating this day. The day I would become an independent. Finally, after countless times of huge arguments and battles with my parents to the point where we almost resented each other, I would get my freedom. My mind was fixated on going to a big, crazy party school and avoiding my family at all cost. That is, until I realized the truth behind all of their doings and now understood, maybe they weren't as crazy as I thought.
Growing up in the Bronx as the eldest daughter of two Italian Immigrants was no walk in the park, especially in high school. When I was younger I thought I had all the freedom. Walking to the park or bodega with my two cousins and roaming around their complex with no guidance. I thought we were the coolest seven-year-old's around. However, being that my family wanted a safer neighborhood and a better high school for me, we moved up state to a small town, Eastchester, in Westchester, New York. This town was not what my parents were used to and being that we no longer knew the residents to every home and the owners of every store, I lost that sense of freedom. In high school all the people I knew were allowed to go out and stay out at all hours, the would drink and go down to the city. I was not allowed to do any of this. At the time I would throw fits as to why my friends could go to parties and I couldn't, or as to why I couldn't come home from the city by myself past midnight. My relationship with my parents grew weak, especially when I started to go behind their backs to do things I knew I shouldn't.
College was my break away. I looked forward to college since the day I started high school. I dreamed of going all the way across the country to California and never coming back to New York. I wanted to be free. All I did was complain about my parents and how much I disliked them. However, when it came the time to start picking colleges, I happen to fall in love with a school that was only a little over two hours away, but I thought it was far enough. Far enough to still live my dream of independence.
Once school began and I became an independent I started to realize things. So many people had such mixed up values and priorities that just would not do them any well, and I wondered why this was. I lashed out and did the things I've wanted to do my whole life, only to realize they did me no good. Within a month and only reaching the tip of the ice berg of everything I though about, I no longer wanted to do any of it. I realized that my parents were right, and I was just young and dumb at the time. If it wasn't for them keeping me in the night before exams, I would have never got into a school like UConn. If it wasn't for them keeping me from doing things I knew i shouldn't, I would have never built the values and aspirations I have now that keep me on the path I need to be on. They guided me to this path an gave me the values to keep me on it once I grew independent. So Thank you mom and dad. Thank you for being strict and keeping me away from the things that could have prevented me from being where I am now. Thank you for giving me what I need to get where I need to go.
