Going Back

Before reading this post I recommend you read yesterday’s post “Leaving“.

Three weeks ago I returned to Smith College for the first time in three years. Leading up to the trip, I was nervous. I had butterflies in my stomach for about a week. At night I had stress dreams about going back. In these dreams, I was returning to Smith as a student. Everywhere I turned there were people I vaguely recognized. These people knew me and kept giving me hugs and I had no idea who any of them were. In my dream I couldn’t find any of my classes. I don’t even think I knew what classes I was enrolled in. I didn’t have any of my text books. And to top it all off nobody had thought to tell me that my roommate had been in a coma for six months. I spent a good chunk of the dream trying to find where she was.

The reality was nothing like the dream. I was just going back for a weekend. I didn’t have any classes to take. I didn’t need any text books. My former roommate was fine. The friend I was staying with was fine. No body was in a coma as far as I’m aware.

I got to the Smith Campus and experienced the strangest sensation. It was like I was experiencing the present and reliving the past simultaneously. I was present in my strong, healthy body of today and yet viscerally reminded of the condition I’d been in when I left Smith. I felt dizzy and faint. My breathing became labored. I felt this gnawing, twisting hunger in my belly. It took me a while to figure out what was going on – that I wasn’t actually sick, but physically remembering the days leading up to my sudden departure from college.

I stayed in the same house I’d lived in when I was a student at Smith. I walked in the door and for a moment it was like I’d never left. There was that familiar smell – not a bad smell, some combination of baked goods and cleaning products with a certain spicy edge – the furniture was slightly different, the light fixtures had been upgraded, but there was the same sign above the kitchen sink asking “Why You no clean dishes?” that had been there before, slightly more worn and faded.

One of the strangest things about going back was my interactions with the people. My close friends greeted me enthusiastically. They knew that I’d been gone; they’d missed me. Women, I’d only been acquainted with saw me and recognized me, but didn’t necessarily remember who I was and that I wasn’t actually a student there anymore and hadn’t been for nearly three years. People I hadn’t known before didn’t seem to notice that I was a visitor. I guess I blended right in. It was weird. People assumed I belonged there. I wasn’t expecting that, mostly because I didn’t feel like I belonged there anymore.

I suppose, I’ve come such a long way since leaving Smith that I thought that it would somehow translate into people’s perceptions of me. That they would sense I was “other”, that I stood apart, that I wasn’t a “Smithie” anymore. And maybe that’s my vanity flaring up. Maybe I wanted people to see me and to see how much I’ve changed and grown since the last time I walked among them. Maybe I was disappointed that more people didn’t remember who I was. It’s hard to be reminded that you don’t make a difference in the lives of every person you’ve ever been on a first name basis with. That you’re just a bit player in their personal drama. It’s not pleasant to remember that most people don’t really care.

It was also a relief to see my friends again and to know that they don’t judge me for my decisions, that they don’t think less of me for choosing an abnormal path. My old self would have judged my present self. My old self was so caught up in the idea that formal education was the only valid form of education that  my old self would have sneered at my self-educated, present self from behind a perfectly bland, pleasant exterior. And maybe that’s why it’s been so hard for me to come to grips with my decision not to go back to college for the moment; I became I victim of my own judgmental nature. I had to learn to accept myself again and to unlearn a lifetime’s worth of intellectual elitism.

I come from a family that prizes education above almost all else. Nearly everyone on both my mom’s side of the family and my dad’s has an advanced degree. I grew up being told how smart I was and as a smart girl from an educated family I knew I was expected to continue my education by going to college. And not just any college – an expensive, private college. (I’d like to point out that this was an expectation placed on me by society. By my teachers and guidance counselors. By my grandparents and by myself. My parents were the only ones who tried to dissuade me, but the roar of expectation out-voiced common sense). I bought into the expectation. I tied my identity into that expectation and when reality came knocking at my door I lost my identity. I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to follow in the footsteps of my parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles. I wasn’t physically capable of doing so and that realization rocked me to the core. I didn’t know who I was anymore. I didn’t know who I was meant to become.

I’ve spent the last three years trying to figure it out again, trying to piece together an identity for myself separate from society’s expectations for a girl of my background and history. I think part of me was afraid that going back to Smith would crack the foundations of all the hard work I’ve put into myself. That my identity would somehow crumble into pieces like a papier mache  mask left out in the rain. I’m glad to say that I survived my trip to Smith. I did not fall apart. I was strong enough to return to the site of my greatest failure without returning to that place of self doubt.

My return to Smith closed a chapter of my life. It brought me peace of mind. It brought me to a reconciliation with myself. I realized that I don’t regret my decision to go to Smith. I don’t regret the way things played out, even though they didn’t play out well. I may wish that things had gone differently, that I didn’t have tens of thousands of dollars worth of debt for less than a year’s worth of education, but if they had, I wouldn’t be where I am now. If I had stayed at Smith, I wouldn’t have the job that I have now. I wouldn’t have made the progress with my writing that I have made. Instead I’d be facing graduation with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of debt, trying to figure out where to go next with my life and calculating how many decades it would take me to pay back my parents for the loans they took out to pay for my education.

And while I don’t regret going to Smith in the first place, I also don’t regret leaving. And  going back I found that I didn’t feel the need to re-enroll at Smith. I was afraid I might find myself back on campus and become so overwhelmed with nostalgia that I’d want to go straight to the admissions office and fill out an application. But I didn’t feel that way. I was reminded of both the good things and the bad things and I was able to leave the experience behind me.

Driving back to Maine I felt lighter – empty almost – like I’d laid to rest a ghost that had been following me around for three years. Now I can continue to forge ahead along the path I’m building for myself. It may not be the straightest path, but so far it’s leading me to a place of happiness and self-fulfillment.

Thank you for Reading.