Freshman Frenzy

This upcoming Monday will conclude my first year at Wake Forest University.

Now will whoever is holding down the fast forward button press pause for a minute? I need to digest all that’s happened this year.

I came to college back in August. I was young, naïve, and completely unsure of how to get around my freshman dorm, much less the whole campus.  Today I can comfortably tell you how to get around campus…as for being young and naïve I’m pretty sure that hasn’t changed. When you come to college, I’ve found, there is this interesting atmosphere of experience that I don’t remember being present in high school. You’re on your own, away from parents, living with your friends, and you’ve got four years to make the absolute most of it!

What will you do with college? What will college do with you?

Of course, it’s not so dramatic as this inside the freshman brain upon arrival to school. I was more focused on questions such as:

Why did I think it was a good idea to leave my friends?

How do I get rid of these fluorescent lights?

What are all of these Jersey kids doing here?

How do I get to the Pit again?

Wait, maybe having your Mom at college would be a good thing?

I was so caught up in a thousand little fears and worries every day that the answers to all of these questions snuck up on me without me even noticing.  Looking back on the beginning of my freshman year, I am shocked at how intentionally God worked in my life to create a home for me at Wake Forest. Though the fluorescent lights still reign as king in my dorm room, I acclimated easily enough to having my childhood friends in different places than me. After eating a couple of meals, I found the Pit (our cafeteria) with no trouble. Having my mom at a distance has only made our relationship stronger, and one of those Jersey kids became one of my best friends.

Freshman year could probably be described in one word for me: growth. It has not been easy. I would even go so far as to say that at times, this was one of the hardest years of my life. These two semesters have been full of mistakes, misjudgments, and misguided paths I stumbled through. I am not proud of everything I have done this year, but I am blessed enough to know the grace of Christ.  And for the times when I just didn’t feel it, I had sweet friends there to remind me of God’s great love. That, to me, is what it is to grow. It is not something marked by perfection, by flawless transition. It is not strictly personal, an isolated action. I have had my share of “growing pains” and I have leaned on people for so much of the way.

So why was I surprised the first time I referred to Wake as home? It was such an odd moment. There I was talking about fall break and it just slipped out: “I’ll be home on Sunday.” Home. I felt a bit guilty, as if I had betrayed my family and Birmingham by calling somewhere else home. But it was true. I do feel like Wake is a home for me. My little freshman dorm, the old brick buildings, Wait Chapel and its spotlight after dark- these are images of home for me now. What else are images of home for me? Catherine Douglas laughing on my floor, Annie Monson dancing to a middle school rap song, Tillman Hamilton sitting across from me at the Pit- these are just a few of the people who feel like home to me.

(cue that depressing song  “feels like hoooooome to me...”)

This has been unreasonably long, but I believe I warned you that I always have too much to say. And don’t you worry, this is not the last of my freshman year posts. It’s going to be an exciting series of posts that leave me in tears because I JUST DON’T WANT IT TO BE OVER.

P.S. to those of you who go to Wake and are judging me because I had trouble finding the Pit…you should know my sense of direction is very poor in that it doesn’t exist