Lost and Found -- The Road to College Part 2

It’s an old saying that “You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone”. That’s true. But sometimes “You don’t know what you’re missing until you find it”.

After the summer’s ordeals (if you haven’t read The Road to College — My Rough Start, now would be a good time to do so and then come back) I settled down into college. Or, at least I tried to. Lindenwood University (LU) had overbooked the number of students that they had accepted for on campus living, and wisely. Students drop out before they even start, never arrive, change their college plans, or drop out within in the first few weeks. Being that I was one of the overbookees, if you will, I was assigned to the Niccolls Hall lounge, now turned bedroom for eight girls. However one of those girls never showed so it was me and six other girls in a big vast amount of open space… until you added in all our personal belongings, our bedding preferences, our schedules, our personalities, and our lifestyle choices. But we “Lounge Cats”, as we were later dubbed, figured it out. All of us got along relatively well being that we were all Freshmen, all extremely nerve wracked about starting college, and all suddenly thrust into the world of higher education. Julia hailed from Montana and came to LU for the synchronized swimming program, Brittney and Lauren hailed from Newburg, Missouri and came to LU together, Sheridan and Alyssa hailed from Missouri as well (though the town escapes me now) and had also come to Lindenwood together. Millie was also from MO (and the town escapes me). I was from Waynesville, Missouri, a small town outside of Fort Leonard Wood and knew that not a single person from my school had wound up there but me. Sheridan and I were bunk mates, Lauren and Brittney naturally bunked together, Julia and Alyssa bunked together, and Millie enjoyed free reign of a bunk to herself. But it’s not all squished as it seems. Brittney and Lauren debunked their beds and personalized a small portion of the lounge. Julia and Alyssa also debunked their beds and created small spaces of their own though they slept side by side. Sheridan, Millie, and I, being on the smaller side of the lounge, decided to keep our beds bunked to make everything easier, and more spacious. As the days spent as the Lounge Cats rolled into weeks as we all waited for our placement rooms, we naturally figured out everyone’s schedules and habits and worked around each other to keep things moving smoothly. Julia was focused on swimming and grades and had her own crowd to hang with. Alyssa, Lauren, and Brittney liked to party. Millie, Sheridan, and I all hung together with the various friends we were all making and bringing by, totally content to focus on our preschool studies that Lindenwood had entitled “FYE Week” or Freshmen Year Experience Week and then chill after our days were done. But things weren’t as relaxed as they seemed– at least not for me

Underneath the settling seemingly well shell that I had going I was an emotional mess. College alone is a big adjustment for a lot of people. Getting to college and starting the way I did was a bit of my own personal hell. After fighting with my father over the summer, being completely ignored by him in the airport, staying in a hotel for the first time by myself and having everything go wrong until a friend of mine came to stay with me (at four in the morning), going through Registration Day without any of my family present, moving in with my grandmother the night of Registration Day because I was scared to go home, packing, unpacking, and repacking my whole entire life in boxes, leaving my siblings, my hometown, my friends, and everything familiar to me, traveling up to and moving into my college without any of my family, and then trying to suddenly settle into college life — I was a mess. Nothing had gone the way it was supposed to and, being who I am, that didn’t sit well with me. I was away from my siblings and concerned I’d never hear from them again, afraid that me going off to college would mean we’d lose touch and that I’d lose them, too. My father was way more than angry at me and hadn’t participated in the traditional college events like helping me move in or even going to Registration Day. I was in the middle of college life with no chance to call “home” and spill beans about first day classes, new-found friends, getting to know campus, and things of the like. Whereas most everyone I knew could travel home for the weekend, I was stuck on campus because any resemblance of “home” for me was nearly 200 miles away. And even that wasn’t really home. By end of my first day of classes I’d had enough. I had gotten close with the Resident Director (RD) and one of the Resident Advisers (RA) and spoke with the RD. I was ready to give up and just count my losses. My RD talked with me and suggested that I go to a stress center to get myself together and then she contacted all the right people to help me get there. I contacted the RA I was close to and let her know what was going on and both her and my RD stayed with me until three in the morning before they both had to be back for classes the next day. I couldn’t be more grateful for their help.

I spent four days in the stress center figuring out what had a hold on me and how to deal with it. Not even three hours after blessedly being back within the comfort of LU’s campus grounds and the warmth of my friends’ company, my father called. He and I hadn’t talked since the ordeal over the summer and I certainly didn’t feel like picking up the phone only to get chewed out by the very man that was part of why I was stressed in the first place. So I let the phone ring. And ring. And ring. Finally it went to voicemail and I waited apprehensively for my phone to buzz letting me know that I had a voicemail. Fear gripped me at what I would hear as my phone buzzed and I held down the 1 key to take me to my voicemail. It was, of course, my father chewing me out and demanding that I call him so I could tell him why I was in acute care again– which is another whole story all on it’s own that will more than likely be published later. A mixture of angry and scared, I decided that messaging my father back with my exact thoughts and explicitness weaved in between every other word wouldn’t help anything… I wasn’t aiming to get myself killed. I decided to wait until I calmed down and when I did I formulated a very polite and respectful but ground holding text message. I sent the message to the friend that had stayed with me in the hotel and been with me for Registration Day and asked what her opinion was– I really didn’t want to make things worse than they already were. She gave me her input and I changed the text a bit to sound more formal and less like I was telling off my father nicely and then, with shaking fingers, sent the message. Obviously the fuel to the flame, my father sent back a text message saying that if I was going to use his insurance (I had told the hospital not to use it) for my “antics” then he had every right to demand to talk to me. He called again and, now peeved, I let it ring until it went to voicemail. I wasn’t about to put myself in a situation I knew would only put me in more pain, our relationship in even more sour spirits, and my father in a seemingly endless mood of pissed off which would not be good for my siblings. From there my father and I argued– me telling him that he had no control over me anymore, him threatening to come to my school to “deal with” me, and me reiterating that I didn’t need him anymore. The conversation ended with my father saying that he’d deal with me in the real world if I wanted to “play games like an adult” and then saying, “Goodbye, Monica Jr”. Monica happens to be my mother’s name and my father knew that it would be the perfect button to push to get a reaction out of me. The last thing I said to my father was that I may be my mother’s daughter, but I am nothing like my mother, and that he could go ahead and deal with me however he wanted, I didn’t need him anymore and he didn’t have any control over me.

Not too long after the stress center, I was placed in a room within Niccolls, a dorm typically not for Freshmen. I was lucky and found out a request was put in on my behalf. During one of the dorm meetings, I met some of the people that I now know, love, and work with. And through a series of many more events over the course of my first year as a college student I have met many more people that I have the privilege to not only call friends, but family. And until them, I didn’t know what I was missing out on.

Since finally settling in at Lindenwood, I’ve met the best friends I could ever ask for and could never live without. Through countless hours of studying, trials, tribulations, joy, sadness, sorrow, drama, life, laughter, and weirdness that could only be described as specifically ours, my friends at Lindenwood have been there to lean on, complain to, cry on, worry, laugh with, make two in the morning QT, Dollar Store, and Wal-Mart runs with, study with, and party in our own little ways with. And I’ve been there for them in much the same ways. It’s an equal relationship that I can only describe as uniquely ours and completely sustaining for me. We do everything together whether it’s the whole huge group of us or just a few of us hanging out, and that’s the only way any of us want it to be, especially me.

I lost a few really big and important things because of some really unfortunate and petty things both on my part and the part of others. Fortunately for me though, God has given me another chance with the family that I’ve been blessed with at Lindenwood. And I don’t plan on letting it slip through my fingers. Someone a long time ago said that “You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone”. That’s true, it really is. I miss my father but I refuse to be the one to give ground this time, not when I know that, for once, I’m standing up for me and something that I know is right. The cool thing in all this though, is that I’ve gained the family that I never really got the chance to have for whatever reasons that are. So it’s more like I didn’t know what I was missing until I found it… or rather when God put it in front of me.