JOHN SAAVEDRA, JR.
Contributor

Word of the day: transition.
It is bouncing around every freshman’s head, including my own. My first moments as a college student were ones played out with music— I room with Isaac Leggett and Matt Ryan, after all. I set my stuff down on the floor, my father following close behind with more things, my mother taking very slow steps into the room that would soon become her son’s new home. I looked around. Though the room wasn’t anything special in size, I could still feel a sense of its enormity. At that moment I felt like an ant, expectation’s big foot ready to stomp down on my puny body. I was scared in those first moments.
This is false: you can leave your home.
You cannot. The second thought coursing through my head after the fear was gone was that I was completely “free.” There would be no one to tell me to clean my room or invade my privacy — my parents don’t ever knock, which makes for hundreds of interrupted writing sessions. At long last, I was going to go out whenever I wanted, wherever I wanted.
But then I realized that every time I came back to my dorm on Sunday I needed to Febreze (yes, I can turn air freshener products into verbs!) my room. I didn’t only need to clean my room, I wanted to. I fold my clothes and put them in organized drawers categorized by type of apparel. I even put a new trash bag in the garbage can, sometimes even in my suitemate’s! It’s really scary realizing that I’m listening to my mother when she’s not around. As much as I hated the rules, the scolding, the complaining, I end up living my life with those same credos. Even if I’m running the clockwork of my life on my own now, my parents and their teachings are embedded in me. Home stays with you wherever you go.
Another lie: college doesn’t change you.
Fears are conquered on open mic nights. History, however small it can be (although huge for the individual), was made in the Mansion. A shy eighteen-year-old writer stood in front of a tightly packed crowd. It was silent. The mood was perfect for a poem. The happy folk songs were done with and only those with endurance were still in the room. They sat waiting for the writer to speak. His first words were nervous ones. They didn’t sound natural at all. In fact, he’d been rehearsing them all night, as he watched people begin to battle their heavy eyelids at a quarter past twelve.
“I wrote this last night. It’s short so it will be quick and painful…less.”
No one laughed. He was never a comedian.
Then he looked down at the paper. “Also Sprach Zarathustra” began to play in the background like it would in a Stanley Kubrick film. He read, “Man reading a newspaper…”
He read the whole thing, silence throughout. It was not a funny poem. He wouldn’t dare try something like that. A year before, he wouldn’t have even dared go up and read a poem in front of an audience. This night, he decided to change.
Final words of the poem: “A day in his life.”
Routine: keeping to myself, not sharing, not giving an inch of myself to the public, keeping quiet. Writing. Pondering on whether I should step out of my shell. A day in my life.
When I sat back down, people clapped. Brandon Battersby, a prominent student in the Creative Writing program, gave me a thumbs up. I didn’t feel like I had affected the audience with my poem. I hadn’t made it even more silent, as each person’s thoughts began to race in their heads. It was a simple sea of words lost in a wave. But experience is never lost. After that night, I feel like I can read again, and with a little bit more confidence. Next time I don’t have to say dumb jokes before I read. Next time my paper won’t shake as I read it. Most importantly, there will be a next time.
A pathetic attempt at wisdom: pick up a pair of sticks, start playing with them. Eventually, you will learn how to start a fire.
Last words: A new day. Discover something new about yourself. Make it sacred. Make it home. Nothing you have learned so far will be left behind. It was all thrown into the cocoon that is adolescence. You will be different when you bloom. A butterfly.