The intimidating mural of stylized heads and arbitrary brushstrokes in the lounge of my dorm quotes the Talking Heads: “And you may ask yourself ‘Well, how did I get here?’”
The most honest answer I can give: I have no idea.
I’m living in a time warp, watching my seventeenth year fly by on fast-forward. A minute ago I graduated high school. The next thing I remember is moving into a room that really could have used an air conditioner on that sweltering August day. My mother chided me for overpacking (I packed nothing I needed and everything I didn’t) and attempting to color code my closet.
In the first week, I discovered the hard way that you’re only as strong as your memory foam mattress topper and your laundry detergent. A phone call home provided the former (thanks dad!) but spending $6 at the grocery store located mere steps from my room has left me with a tiny bottle of Tide that will be gone by November. Pro tip: make a Target run before moving to the middle of Connecticut with no driver’s license or car. Don’t forget dish soap; your parents aren’t around to run the dishwasher anymore.
College is a struggle between self-reliance and comfort. Do you choose the convenience, and surprising deliciousness, of the dining hall’s Friday afternoon vegan apple crisp? Or do you conserve meal credits and cook your own food? Do you take Physics instead of a 9 AM Computer Science course because you just can’t wake up that early?
Beyond that struggle, the most unnerving part of the whole experience is the sense of endless possibility. You’re done with class at 2:20 and have absolute freedom to write slam poetry and eat overpriced grapes with your friends, listen to your roommate play the violin on the terrace, or attend a lecture on the multi-verse. There’s no one to chide you for staying up too late (which might be why I managed to lose my voice within the first week), and no one to object when you blast Mozart in an empty library. The days are overflowing with new faces, more names than human memory can possibly retain, and a wealth of new opportunities and experiences that present themselves everywhere I turn.
In this tumultuous time it’s been nice to have an anchor in the Wesleyan Jewish community. Shabbat dinner on Friday nights staves off the inevitable erosion of my meal credits, and takes me back to the warmth of my mother’s home cooked meals. Orientation was a blur of “where are you from?” and “what classes are you taking?” – in a place where so much is new, familiarity of any kind is worth holding onto.
So I’m still not entirely sure how I got here, but I’ve concluded it doesn’t matter. What matters is making the most of my time at Wesleyan while staying true to whatever it was that propelled me here.
Penina Yaffa Kessler is a freshman at Wesleyan University. She enjoys being barefoot, fresh fruit, live music, and all the other important things in life. Her column, Fresh Off the Block, appears here on alternating Saturdays.
