The college of emotions

By: Kali Lamparelli
Posted In: Opinion

I put the latest mixed CD into the car. I turn the volume up as loud as I can. I remember the first time my parents drove me to Newport. The sun was blazing and I was a mix of insecurities. What would freshman year hold? How would my running go? Would I have friends? Even if I did, would they accept me?

How would I leave my twin? We spent 18 years together and now we would be apart for the first time. There would be no one to protect me.

No one had traveled this path before for this was my path and my steps, my extremely shy steps were already unsteady.

It was August and it was preseason for cross country. I didn’t know it then but the tall blonde woman who stood in front of me would become my family.

I wouldn’t know the answers to my questions until I lived them-until I stopped being afraid of change and just lived.

Freshman year was the most brutal year of my life. I was accepted; I was kicked out of friendships, deeply wounded, and found truth. My legs failed me and I never ran after the first semester.

I made friends, the kind you don’t know you actually have until you’re laying on hospital room floors, and crying under your desk.

The kind of friends that answer their phones at 4 a.m., the kind of friends you fall asleep next to, dream alone, together, and travel through life’s uncertainties with. I made the kind of friends that don’t give up even when it gets really painful to look you in the eyes, the kind of friends who will exist beyond house parties and bars.

The blonde girl that stood in front of me during preseason became my roommate, my enemy, and the kind of friend you don’t know you have until you’re playing tea party on an elevator discussing the humor in the irony of life.

I found the deep love of beautiful friendships. I found the kind of love that people try to find for themselves but never attain because they forget that it is okay to be honest with themselves.

College breaks hearts, tests faith and unindividualizes people. College teaches forgiveness of humanity, strengthens our minds, repairs our hearts and forever alters us; that is if we do it right.

We spend the next half of our lives trying to get over that, trying to remember who we were before.

College taught me who I am and reminded me of the reasons that make life so profound, that make dreams worth dreaming.

I don’t know what the semester will hold. I don’t know what my favorite semester was or what moment was the best for me.

I just know that I would have less of a heart, miss the beauty of tears, all nighters with friends not books if I did not live fearlessly into the answers of my questions.