REFLECTION

To begin it is only fitting that we start with some wisdom from Cheryl Strayed, award winning advice columnist, passionate friend and long-time activist.

“Who we become is born of who we most primitively are; that we both know and cannot possibly know what it is we’ve yet to make manifest in our lives.”

If I lean my head back, close my eyes and take a deep breath I can instantly transport myself into my first day of University; my first day as an semi-independent woman. I knew everything and nothing all at once. You see, that is exactly what Cheryl Stray is getting at. This idea that we have the reigns in our life to know who we are but no idea what that even means. Wide eyed, I stepped on this campus, slightly introverted and curious about everything.

The past two and half years has had its moments of turbulence, but for the most part it has swept me away with such awe. I have evolved into someone who I never thought I could be: confident, fun, spontaneous but driven. You see, when I walked on campus that scorching August day, naive of course, as any Freshman would be, I stopped trying to habitually force myself into being who I thought I should be on campus. For a moment, there was an incredibly daunting reality of ambiguity that I simply had to learn to live with.

My type A high school self had everything in line. A superlative GPA, ideal extracurriculars and an entitled attitude. A high school narrative that, as I would learn, runs parallel for not just me, but too many other polished and accomplished Michigan University Freshman. It sometimes takes the solo call-out during a 400 person lecture or war with the amazingly unorganized Michigan Math Department (shoutout to my boy Rajiid in that hell of a place we call “The Math Lab”) to prove the level of competition here. Combine that with the first time you wake up in last night’s clothing with the unforgiving grease stains of an infamous Pizza House Cheesy Bread and no recollection of the previous nights actions to give you that sense of being lost. However, you can always combat being lost with finding yourself (they ultimately mean the same thing right?)

I could sit here for hours and hash out why each recallable memory has been fundamental in leading me to who I am today, but I need to expedite this process. Yes, maybe the beginning of college felt a bit barbarian compared to my prim life back home, but that is the transparent charm of it. Blend the high of meeting someone new every day, with the anxiety behind every given Spanish class Freshman year and the vulnerability of sitting in the bare, darkness of your sorority house basement to confess the most sensitive and weak moments of our lives thus far. Dash in a year full of living with 60 girls, a spitting match up of your stereotypical college spring break and a semester with two of the most thought-provoking classes you have ever taken. You now will have progressed into a relatively self-reliant and assured young lady. You care deeply about the intricacies behind matters like white privilege and institutionalized racism. You read the news most days, in attempt to self-educate and navigate yourself through the ludicrous maize we know as American politics in 2018. You will then get a respectable internship and spend a summer testing out the waters of “adulting” in New York City. You will hate the internship but love “adulting”. Finally, Junior year will roll around. You will be in this class and it will be time to consider this project, yes all the way in September. You have a job with Sony Entertainment this semester. They will fly you to New York and you will meet the most eclectic group of individuals, to which you will then question the people you spend your time with each and every day. You will feel old this semester and numb to many of the facets on this campus that once made you feel so inspired. In many ways you feel this sense of being lost, backtracking you to that space you haven’t seen since the beginning of freshman year.

Cheryl Stray would remind me that at this point in my life, nothing is to remain the same. If I were to take 10 of my most prominent qualities, two will remain consistent. College is so unique, so unpredictable and so very grey. While I steered clear from advice columns long ago I will say, don’t take college for what it is but let it take you.

I am in the midst of this ambiguous grey state, continuing to take it day by day. I am reminded by my interview with my gay colleague, Adam Selzter, that our priorities may all be unique but our ability to empathize with those cohesively enduring this phase of life is so important. Adam offered the perspective that we often feel obligated to present ourselves in some sort of bubble, but there is no shame in accepting the uncertainty and lack of clarity in our lives.

I hope this amalgam of blog entries throughout my semester will do just that for you. I am not here to offer you the answers, but hope that you can relate to this ambiguity, and at the least enjoy some humor in the nuances of my life.