To Olivia (on your first day of college)
Dear Olivia,
Today is September 15th, 2015. Today, the Class of 2019 arrived on campus and moved into their new homes. They met their RAs and probably made last minute trips to Target. They scoped out the boys and they checked out the girls, and they wondered who they will date. They made their beds, and they figured out if they would store their toiletries in the bathroom or in their rooms. They met their roommates. They met their future best friends.
Eight years ago — eight — you did just that too. You were so scared the night before that you couldn’t sleep. Your stomach wrapped itself in a gordian knot to the point that you couldn’t eat a grape. Mom stayed up with you all night.
Dear Olivia,
Oh, dear Olivia. What didn’t you know then? What do you know now?
Dear Olivia,
It is Tuesday, September 18th, 2007. Today is your first day of college. You are moving into your new home, you are meeting your RAs and Mom is making last minute trips to Target. You’re checking out the boys — such a novelty after four years of an all-girls high school. Will you find a boyfriend? Will you fall in love? Will you become that great, impressive person you’ve always known you would be?
Dear Olivia,
What I wish you had known.
Dear Olivia,
You will try to be special. You will secretly think you are special, but you won’t admit it, rather you’ll seek out people who make you feel special. People who are not available, nor should be. You will be desperate for their attention. You will be loud, you will be calculating. You will be obsessive. You will make decisions that leave you feeling a rush of adrenaline, followed by the crash of loneliness.
Dear Olivia,
You will not start papers until the night before they’re due. This will not change throughout your four years in college.
You will hit your snooze every morning and drive your roommate crazy.
But don’t worry…eight years later she will still be one of your best friends.
Dear Olivia,
Halfway through that first year you will meet a rosy girl from Oregon who you will sing with then, and you will sing with later. Eight years later. She will be wise, and she will understand you better than nearly everyone.
That same time you’ll also meet a boy of your height who will drive you crazy for years. Later, he will hurt you and you will not speak for months and months, but then you will remember that you were once good friends. He will be named Alex. You will never kiss him. But you will write a play about him.
Dear Olivia,
You will eventually meet another boy who is very nice to you, and who thinks you are wonderful and special. You will think he’s boring, but sweet and athletic and so very kind. And he will be tall. You will kiss him for the first time after watching a Bond film.
He will also be named Alex.
Five years later he will break your heart because you didn’t know how to be kind to yourself.
Dear Olivia,
Your friends from that first day will stay your friends through your first year, but over the years you will grow apart from the group. You will still be invited to the weddings, but you will not be in the bridal parties. You will go to Ceci’s wedding and it will be breathtakingly beautiful. She will not marry David. She will marry Daniel. You will dance so hard at their wedding that you will be sore for days.
You and Tessa will talk about writing a screenplay together for years, but eight years later you will still have not done it. But that’s ok. “Put it in the screenplay,” you’ll both still say. Tessa will have moved to LA, and you back to the Bay.
Dear Olivia
You will spend your summers invested in the arts, and you will win that screenwriting competition that sends you to New York City. You will have horrible chest acne the night you’re supposed to walk the red carpet. You will wear a scarf to cover it.
Six years later, you will still get occasional chest acne.
Dear Olivia,
Eight years later — to the day — you will be carrying yourself through this particular day with a heavy heart, because once again you have not loved yourself enough. And your new love is fed up. You will have tried to be honest, vulnerable, and loving. But you will have still made a mess.
You will get home that night, take a shower, and then stand in the middle of your bedroom and cry violently, wrapped in only your bath towel.
You won’t have figured it all out. You won’t have implemented all your life learnings with a 100% success rate.
But you will always be trying to be a little bit better than the last time.
Dear Olivia,
Mostly, you will be ok.
Happy first day of college.
