Boomers' Wisdom Blog

I recently visited a university campus to attend a wedding.  Although it was not the same school that I attended, the atmosphere brought back vivid memories from some 40 years earlier.  I remembered the anticipation of making new friends, the excitement of learning new things, the joy of being free of parental scrutiny and the one I least expected – fear.

When I started school I brought with me all the bravado of an 18-year-old kid thinking I knew everything about everything.  I couldn’t wait to leave my home town and travel 1,000 miles away to freedom.  I marked off the last few months to high school graduation on a calendar with pages that never seemed ready to turn.  Unlike all previous summer vacations, this one was endless.  I passed the days with friends and family and the nights by dutifully sewing name tags into my clothes.  Yes, to my mother this was exactly like going to camp and the name tags were a condition of my ability to go so far away.

When the summer finally ended and it was time to pack up I was the first one in the car.  Mom and dad drove the 1,000 miles and helped me carry all my possessions up three flights of stairs to my tiny dorm room.  We said goodbye and they drove away.  Many years later my mother told me that she cried most of the way back home.  I was after all the last child to leave the nest.

It was fabulous for the first few days in my new home.  The sky was blue, the leaves were red and gold and new friends were easy to come by in a dorm full of strangers trying hard to get acquainted.  We registered for classes by going from table to table in the gymnasium and collecting IBM punch cards from the people sitting there.  If you waited too long to get in line the cards would be gone which meant the class was full.  So, you hunted through the class catalogue that was tucked under your arm and tried to find something else that would fit in that time slot.  Then off you went to another table.

I liked my roommate although we had little in common.  I liked the population size of the school at about 6,000 students.  I liked the old campus with the big trees and vintage classrooms as well as the newer section with the modern buildings and large student center.  I didn’t like that on the second weekend of the term the school nearly emptied out.  It turned out that many of the kids were from towns 60 to 75 miles away and although they lived in the dorms they often went home for the weekend.

All of a sudden the reality that I was away from everyone and everything familiar unexpectedly sent a wave of panic through me.  I dialed home and reversed the charges for the long distance call and began to sob as I heard my mother’s voice accepting the call from the operator.  I told mom it had been a terrible mistake to come here and I wanted to come home.  She remained calm and said that it was too far to come back so soon, but that I could fly home at Christmas and find a new school.  I was satisfied with that solution and started marking off days on the calendar again.

Soon after the call to my mother I fell into a comfortable routine of going to classes and spending time with new friends.  The fear of being so far away and so alone subsided.  I did look for new schools over that Christmas break but none felt as good as the one I was now calling home.  I fell so completely in love with my new state of residence that to date I have not lived or worked anywhere else.

That first time so far from home I learned more than I anticipated.  Like most teenagers I thought I knew so much already.  Important life lessons started right then and haven’t stopped yet.  That was just the first time that I realized it was okay to be afraid and acknowledge the fear.  It was okay to admit I might have made a mistake and look for a solution.  It was okay to ask someone for help.  Mostly I learned that I had to give new opportunities a real chance before I quit.  You never know where they will lead you.

By Paula Scanland