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After four years, it's really happening. At graduation, everyone moves around one another in white gowns, like ghosts of their younger selves. Everywhere you look, there are flashes going off, parents in the bleachers firing away their cameras, desperate to capture every last moment. And then there is silence.

There are no more distractions between you and your goal: You are leaving. What people never acknowledge is the fear involved in going to college. You spend four years on the anticipation and excitement of getting in, yet in those final days before it actually happens, fear sets in.

These are my thoughts leading up to college, through my freshman Thanksgiving break. It's my insight into the thoughts behind those smiling faces as we prepare for the rest of our lives...

In Preparation for Freedom:

Tuesday, August
I can't see the neat weeks stretched out before me anymore, just the anticipation of the long drive up to the mountains and the color green. Eight hours away, no surprise visits, no demands to come home...eight hours between me and this apartment and these people and my high school, junior high, and elementary schools and square city blocks. There's really nothing left to do but wait, say good-bye to family and friends, get a haircut, see the doctor for a physical, schedule a dental appointment, and buy some winter boots. Really, it's just the waiting now.

Wednesday, August
Maybe it's being alone in this empty room, seeing the closet with my sister's forgotten red dress,
the only thing left hanging. Maybe it's finally being alone in this room after so many years, and not
wanting to be. My parents will finally have the apartment to themselves -- my sister's married, and I'm off to school. I'm tired of waiting, it's making me think too much about how long I fantasized about leaving this place.

I feel grown up all of a sudden. How do you say all your good-byes with a smiling face when you know you won't keep in touch? Of course, your mouth still says so, turned up at the corners as if it
really means it.

I'm not supposed to be sad. I should be crazy with excitement, and I am. It's just that I know after the fury of those first days at college dies down, my parents will still be driving home to their empty apartment. Two people who haven't had a moment alone in 24 years will suddenly have each other. All of my things will be going with me, and the room will be left bare. All that will remain are mirrors on the walls and twin naked beds where two sisters used to sit in the dark and whisper.

Like Summer Camp -- Freedom Attained:

Saturday, September
It's been a full week here at this mountain-top college. Sometimes it's so quiet I can't fall asleep. My roommate had a nervous breakdown, I think. In any case, she left school. I don't know if I'll ever meet another female monster truck driver who stands 5'2" and has a ferret farm.

So far, no new roommate. My friend Amy may move in, but we don't know how to go about doing that with the housing office. Strange bureaucracy has no confines.

So I live alone in a room within a building stacked four stories high, full of people just like me. This campus is packed with 18 to 21-year-olds. I am suddenly craving a creviced face, some knowing eyes, a little facial hair. What a strange concept, this living arrangement thing. We are like clones piled on top of one another.

Thursday, September
Time does not exist here. If the windows were covered and all the clocks were stopped, I don't think I could tell night from day. It's three o'clock in the morning and the prospect of sleep has not yet become a viable option. A bunch of us went exploring tonight. We left the cozy dorm in search of a red barn where others were having a small gathering. We didn't find it; instead, we ended up driving to the old logging road where we eventually accepted the fact that the "exploring"
had been our evening.

We talked for hours about how long ago high school seemed and who we think we will become at the end of "this." On the way home we stopped at the gas station for huge chocolate chip cookies -- the same song was playing as the first time we were there. The guy behind the counter couldn't figure out why we were laughing so hard.

Sunday, September
When we all sit behind the library and watch the sun set in ways I've never imagined, I am aware all at once of the past, present, and future. Last night we sat in Jim's dimly lit dorm room and hung out like it was the only thing we were ever meant to do. We talked like we'd known each other forever.

I thought, yes, this is what it will be like years from now when we have done wild and crazy things just to have stories to tell our children. We'll remember the times when we nearly froze walking in the snow to the farthest building on campus to listen to a lecture on the Santeria or when we drove for miles to help fix Mr. and Mrs. Baxter's house and ran out of gas on the way back.

Unpacking:

Friday, September
Finally I'm beginning to feel a certain comfort being here, a certain familiarity that comes with the passing of time. There are signs that I live here now: shoes under the table, stacks of bottles in the recycle bin, a book on the couch. And there are signs of this place in me now: a flyer for a club folded in my back pocket, my change in the top drawer -- a mix of Canadian and American coins.

Going Home -- Thanksgiving Break:

Thursday, November
I do feel a little older. Today is my birthday: Finally I'm 18. I don't know exactly what that means to me yet, but I'm feeling it out. It's odd having my birthday away from home. Of course, my friends and family called and sent cards, but it just seems so distant. I've had an OK day, but my eyes are burning from staying up too late last night.

I didn't even realize my new friends knew it was my birthday. Magically, they presented me with thoughtful cards made from construction paper and magazines and small gifts, illustrations of the ways in which they know me.

I'm worried about going home for Thanksgiving weekend. It's not going to be the same; I know that much. I worry that I will crave the comfort of my life here. How's that for irony? At least here, everything is on a schedule. Sometimes there's comfort in monotony.

Tomorrow my parents will be here at 1:00 p.m., and after the long journey back, I'll know.

Monday, November
For almost four days I've been back home with the splintered floors and the traffic below. For the most part, things haven't changed that much. More than anything, I have changed. It feels weird to be home -- my room is nice, but they rearranged and redecorated the whole place. I hardly recognized my room when I came in: That was the hardest part. Simple things, like where the scrap paper is by the phone or where the scissors are, have changed. But I'm finally here, above the street, across from the train, and the church bells are ringing.

I'm finally here: "Home," my mother keeps calling it, as if I've forgotten. It's as if they've imagined me laying somewhere in a coma these past weeks and not up at school. That's the part I think she worries about, the part she knows to fear...that someday I might not return.

Shortly after Thanksgiving break came Christmas break, and I realized that I needed to transfer to
another school, one that was not so small and not so expensive. I didn't realize that when I was packing for Christmas break, I would be returning soon after only to gather the last of my belongings.

My parents sat outside my dorm room eating Chinese food while I took posters off the walls and listened to a mix tape someone had made for me. All that was left to do was return a green pair of pants, leave small boxes outside of friend's doors...late Christmas gifts.

A semester passed before I was enrolled in school again. I met new people and collected more phone numbers and histories. Random memories of how someone ate their eggs; all the whites first.

Pretty soon, another graduation day will be upon me. There are bubbles in my stomach as I try to imagine what graduate school will be like. There is relief in recognizing, however, that along with the fear is sheer excitement.

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