Senior Year: Day One

Most of my support system in one picture.

I will now begin to chronicle the best, and possibly worst, year of my life. Starting this fall, I will officially begin taking the final steps towards reaching my bachelor’s degree. That may seem like a light at the end of the tunnel, but this tunnel just so happens to be filled with water, nuclear waste, and, hell, a few alligators to sweeten the deal. To clarify why I seem to be (and clearly am) so pessimistic about the coming school year, I will have to catch you up on the past year AKA the worst year of my life, so far (that’s a tad bit dramatic but exaggeration just makes things sound so much better).

At the beginning of last year (Fall of 2018), I transferred from my small community college to a much larger university right down the road. Though I was much anticipating the challenge and wonders that university has to offer, I was hindered by the fact that I was to be moved into the freshman dorms and not a place off-campus (thanks dad). Now, I have absolutely nothing against the peers that I lived alongside over that year but you have to understand that I was entering my upper-division courses as a junior whilst living with a bunch of freshmen.

To make matters worse, I am, in fact, the same age as all of these people (long story short, I graduated high school at sixteen). Even so, their most recent life experience was high school, and all the drama that comes with it, whereas high school for me was very far outside of my periphery. Because of this, I suffered through many a night of newly minted college freshmen running up and down the halls screaming through all hours of the night. Did I hate them? No. Did I like them for ruining my sleep schedule and occasionally getting it on, on the floor right above me when they thought everyone was gone for the weekend? Absolutely not. 

Besides the dorms, I went through a bit of culture shock with the rapid change of pace. Suddenly, classes were much more difficult and professors much less forgiving. Research papers steadily increased in length, to the point that I wasn’t even sure you could consider writing a book a research paper. It was hard for my brain to keep up, and so it did the next best thing. My mind shut down like a Windows computer on dial-up internet. 

I continued to drown in homework and work and extracurricular responsibility and everything else I stupidly signed myself up for. No matter what I did, I couldn’t seem to break through the surface to catch my breath, and so I gave in and kept sinking as time continued to pass.

That decision of resignation left me in a really tough spot. My grades were dropping to the point that I had to drop a class in the middle of a term, two terms in a row. I overworked myself to the end of getting sick more times then I can count on two hands. I constantly disappointed my friends with failing to follow through on plans to hang out or plans to help them. The worst part was the more I disappointed other people, and myself, the more shame and guilt I began to feel. So when the time came to open up and let people know that I needed help, I couldn’t do it. 

To let go of my pride and my ego, and admit that I couldn’t handle the pressure and I couldn’t do it all was a lot to handle. So I did what I do best, and ignored these feelings until I was too depressed to even leave my house. Thankfully, this is when my family stepped in and told me to drop everything and get on a plane (which I did without asking or hesitation).

My host family in Nepal. From left to right: Me, Ama (Nepali for grandma), Auntie, and Ashish.

Now, not everything about last year was terrible. I had the amazing opportunity to travel with a group of my peers to Nepal, which was a life-changing experience. I also went to a conference for viewpoint diversity and women’s empowerment with a group of people that I admire and respect. And through it all, I had a group of friends that always had my back even when I didn’t take them up on it.

Obviously, this story is more nuanced than what I have just recounted, but as my mother used to write on my hand on mornings before a big speech, “Keep it simple, stupid.” She also used to write KYMS on my hand every morning before school, which stands for “Keep Your Mouth Shut.” I was that kid, I just never shut up and I talked to everyone my teacher sat me next to, even when she sat me next to her.

So, in part, the past year makes me wary of the future, to say the least. At least for right now though, I live in an apartment in a good part of town, I have a job with people I love working with, and that same group of friends is still right alongside me. As this term begins, I know that I will be confronted with more challenges, but I’m hopeful that I can push through till graduation. Who knows what will come after that, but that’s a worry for another day.