After high school graduation, I took a gap year.
My first step was to move from a rural but not-so-quaint Vermont town to the fantastic city of Pittsburgh. Say what you will, but the streets of Oakland, Squirrel Hill, and Shadyside were a lesson in comfortable anonymity I had never known before. I went from an intimate high school of 1200 kids to living a life of complete independence on the third floor of a house on Beeler. I was a subletter. I had no job, no social responsibilities, and nothing to keep me from exploring.
Every day, I spent hours in the Carnegie museums or the public library, pouring over recipes and cookbooks, or studying art until I felt as if each piece on those walls was an old friend. I was very alone. But in a city, most people are accustomed to anonymity, and a sense of community virtually doesn’t exist.
As the Carnegie Melon students came back to school at the end of the summer, I was forced to go back to Vermont. There I found a job with a local company that specializes in invisible-line underwear. For the next six months I worked a thirty-two hour week and learned the joys and frustrations of a small company and long days. During September, I was invited to Wesleyan to visit a friend. After being here for three days, surrounded by the most creative and welcoming people I had ever encountered, I felt compelled to apply, to join what it is to be Wes. I applied Early Decision. It was a completely different experience applying to college the second time around: I was doing it because I wanted to, not because I had to. Work was hard and monotonous in the warehouse, but it was worth it. I not only got enough underwear for a decade, but I was able to buy tickets to Panama.
In Panama, I nannied and cooked for an expat family, helping the children with Spanish and loving every minute of it. When I came back to the US and resumed my days sorting and tagging undies, I immediately began saving up more money to go back.
The second time, still living with the same family, I was able to meet other Americans who had permanently left the US. There’s a saying among the expats: everyone’s here for a reason. Sometimes, those reasons were astonishing. Each individual was a lost human being, struggling to create a society outside of one that had forced them out. They each found strength differently. Seeing the raw emotions between displaced families, being able to sit in at the dinner table, left me questioning my own perception of everything I had ever done. I was able to spend long periods of time discovering what exactly was important to me, and more importantly, why. It struck me that most people are not afforded this chunk of time in life to stare into their own souls and discern what is there. I felt…old. And at peace.
Finally, in the fall of that year, I started my freshman orientation fearing that I was behind my peers academically and socially. They were still in SAT mode, ready to rock papers and exams. I wasn’t. I had completely abandoned all formal education for an entire year. I was just different. There isn’t a distinct orientation event for students who take time off before starting college, but sometimes I wish there was. I needed reinforcement in who I was, I needed to accept my role here whole-heartedly. Instead of trying to maintain what I had been in high school, I should have trusted in what I did know and focused on growing and learning.
I wish I had known after my first week that I am neither smarter nor dumber, better nor worse than you: I am merely completely different. We are all completely different, and will forever be. Within and despite our difference, we are one student body with an open mind. We may share ideas, experiences, beds–but more than anything else, we are here because of our individuality within our community. Like the expats in Panama some of us may feel lost, but all of us are struggling to create a society of our own at this school, to combine our idiosyncrasies and create something new. Within these buildings and our minds, we are Wesleyan. And like the expats in Panama, we’re all here for a reason. The reason I am here is us.