Playing “Grown-Ups”

I was recently given a chance to start over. In fact, it wasn't a choice, I was moving on; and more realistically, I had to move out.

The excitement of living in a new place after living in one place for eighteen years, was overwhelming. This was college. The looming dagger of responsibility hangs over me, all the while I am existing in a town with underage drinking, an apartment with my own bathroom, no parental guidance and ultimately, freedom. (To a college student, that’s all you need).

Just seconds after my mom and dad and best friend climbed into the truck, waving good-bye, and pulled out of the complex, I looked at my roommate standing next to me and had a panic attack. It was over quickly at least.

My roommate is one of my best friends from high school. His name is Patrick. He’s a cool guy, and I continue to believe that, as long as he remembers to do the dishes once in a while.

Our first week here, we spent our days playing grown-ups; we went shopping, we applied for jobs, we put our apartment together and cleaned house. I was getting ready for school at the University, and Patrick was still waiting for our unreliable high school to send his transcripts to the Community College. Although society labels eighteen year olds as “adults” I can promise you that the two of us have not yet grown up.

Patrick and I found some of our high school friends on the University campus that week, and we tried our best to participate in freshman get-togethers and pizza parties. It’s difficult to live in the grown up world and appear on campus as young freshman. We are living an oxymoron-ish existence; still new and confused and expected to be responsible.

It was eleven o’clock one night on campus, and my high school friends Jonathan and Alexis and Patrick and I were looking for a free pancake party that we heard about. When we got there, loud music was playing and a mass of awkward young adults were trying to, in fact, meet and greet and get free pancakes.

My high school friends are all boys (yes, even Alexis) and after the few days I’d spent with them, I was tired of hearing “boy talk” which I found out is worse than “girl talk”. It is just as mean, and just as judgmental, but with more profanity.

So I left them to dance and talk to girls and I went my own way. I circled the outside of the mass of people, and stopped to talk to some kids I knew from orientation over the summer. Then I kept going.

Two guys were sitting on a bench, and one was cute. I had already walked past them when I realized they had said hi to me. I smiled at them and kept going.

I had circled the whole courtyard, grabbed a cup of water, and returned to my friends. They hadn't stopped dancing and only Patrick had noticed I’d returned.

“You having fun?” He asked, his voice raised over the noise.

“Yeah, actually I have someone to go talk to, I was just getting water.” And I turned around, walking back towards the boys on the bench.

I explained that I came back to actually introduce myself. For some reason, only the boy that I thought was cute gave me his number; JT. I talked to him until the party ended. I said good-bye. The next day he texted me and I was invited to a real, honest-to-goodness college party.

The party was a some guy’s three bedroom apartment, where he lived alone. There were three important people at this party; JT, JD and B.

I walked in the doorway, and the first thing JT did was get me a cold beer. I popped it open, took a sip, and held it in my hand the rest of the night… eventually I just left it in a cupholder somewhere.

JT was helping host the party (according to him) and he said hi to everyone who walked in the door. I got introduced to B, who was the only girl that would talk to me at that party (I was relieved to have someone there that I was sure was talking to me for the sole purpose of being my friend).

Then I sat down in a lawn chair in the living room, and spent a good while talking to a very drunk JD. I liked him, and he invited me to salsa class. He looked extremely nerdy, at a party wearing glasses and talking about his calculus classes, so I was surprised when he mentioned the latin dance class…

As the party came to a close, JT offered to walk me home in my drunken state (in reality he had drank his weight in beer, and my lonely, probably warm beer was still sitting in a cup holder of a lawn chair). I let him walk me home and I left my car down the street.

We got to my place and we stood at the bottom of the stairs. He asked if he could kiss me and I said yes. Then I looked at him, thought about it, made him walk back to my car. I drove him home. This was the start to a terrible first week of college.