Editor's Note: Caitlin Emmons is a freshman at the University of California at Santa
Cruz. This is the fifth of a monthly blog Caitlin writes about her experiences at college.
Cruz. This is the fifth of a monthly blog Caitlin writes about her experiences at college.
| Caitlin's College Blog By: Caitlin Emmons The Reintegration Process Coming home for your first winter break is a one-of-a-kind experience, and no one size fits all. Some people will decide to blacklist everyone they knew in high school, some will limit themselves to their best friends from home, some will try to act like no time has passed and others will try and get some where in between, probably the most difficult attempt. When I thought about coming home I had visions of my high school friends interacting with my college friends and everything being perfect. I saw myself making time for everyone and catching up on everything that had happened during our times apart. Naturally, it wasn’t so perfect, but I wouldn’t go as far as writing it off as a total failure. The fact is while you may have been closer than you thought possible with these people three months ago, a lot has changed. I have mentioned before that reduc-ing your friend count is perfectly normal once you move away from your hometown, but it does get more complicated when you get back from the mystical land we call college. It is naive to assume that you can catch up on 3 months of missed lives, but you can make the best of the few weeks you have. This break I made it my goal to see as many people as possible, but I didn’t just want to see my fellow Class of 08-ers. I wanted to see the people who had come before me and inspired me. Being a freshman at a huge school made me miss the guidance I had once gotten from the upperclassmen in high school. So I set out on my first mission. I had a friend who had recently gotten engaged, so I started there. This way I didn’t have to worry about the long catch up and could just focus on ore recent events and she could talk about wedding plans. It was something that was easy and didn’t require hours of background knowledge to analyze. One coffee date later and I was beginning to feel I had accomplished something. Goal number two was seeing the people who had yet to graduate. I figured I owed them a few visits at least, seeing as they were the people who were probably the most inter-ested in what college had taught me. It sort of became the real life person to person version of this column. “What have you learned? What are the boys like? How do you balance your school work and friends?” One question after another, and yet surprisingly I didn’t get tired of telling the same stories, of rehashing the same scandals and the dramatics, or of painting the dream college picture. And that is where the problems be-gan. So far, for me college has been great. I have an amazing best friend, great room-mates, fun study buddies, sweet hall mates, and a fabulous social circle. And as I told people all about the wonderful additions to my life, I realized just how lacking high school had been. So originally goal number three had been to play a game of catch...up. But after my harsh realization, all I really wanted to do was curl up on my college bestie’s couch and watch a movie. Life had made this a bit too easy for me: my best friend lives in the same town as me, we just didn’t hang out during high school. So, that’s exactly what I did for the first two weeks of break. I made very few attempts to hang out with the kids I had hung out with in high school, and I was suddenly very happy again. Bear in mind that I am not endorsing severing ties with the old and only embracing the new, but for me in this moment staying close to those I have in college meant a lot more. I have definitely seen other people since and plan to see many before I leave, but it is hard not to brag when people are complaining about the kids they are friends with in school not “understanding them” the way people from home do. I had the exact opposite experi-ence: I got to school and suddenly was understood in ways I didn’t even know I could be, and that means more to me than anything else at this point. I realize I got pretty lucky when it came to choosing a best friend, who lives across a quad at school and up the street at home. But what I think the lesson here is to figure out which of your friendships in high school were genuine and which were there for convenience. Once you know who your real friends really are you can make the most of your limited time at home and spend it doing more than playing a game of catch up. |
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