After you wipe the tears off of your helicopter mom’s cheek, you are ready to take on the world as an independent young woman with a fresh pair of boat shoes paid for by your dad. Breaking news: your college roommate will ask you what is up with “those grandma shoes” and offer to let you borrow some footwear before your first shopping trip. Fast forward two hours, and you will find yourself frantically running around the streets trying to buy not only “normal people shoes,” but also “normal people clothes.”
Your extensive array of polo shades has become completely useless, and you better kiss those 12 pairs of khakis goodbye. (Keep your kilt, though -- you know why -- Halloween!) It is the end of an era. I know it may seem nerve-wracking at first, but I promise you don’t need to wear a blazer adorned with pins displaying the grand variety of leadership positions you assumed to make friends. While your “prestigious” institution most definitely prepared you to recite "The Canterbury Tales" and belt out the school hymn at any given time or BAC level, it did not prepare you for the inevitable identity crisis you will suffer as an overly excited freshman.
All of a sudden, your world will explode when you think of all the ways to spend your time from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. No check-in! No study hall! No dorm parent telling you to be quiet when you really need to FaceTime the new guy on the hockey team who is totally into you because he liked your Instagram. (Yes, that pic of you and your brunette friend apple picking, wearing vests and bean boots, surrounded by fall foliage, hence the caption “Fall with my frandz”. Oh, and some leaf emojis.) No more staring out of your small window, always wondering: “When will my life begin?” Because finally, your life has begun.
Hookups no longer need to be in sketchy basements, behind trees, in bathroom stalls, under piles of snow, in the library “study” room, on turf fields, and on tennis courts -- you have now been granted access to the wonderful world of beds! Comfort! Well, you may have gotten a taste of that, but this time around, you won’t need to hide under the covers, pray to every god and the founder of your school, or jump out of the window at the knock of a door. No longer are you Eskimo sisters with your entire dorm, and no longer do you need to be puzzled by the fact that every girl has the same three guys in her Snapchat best friends list. Last but not least, you are not confined to “library dates,” “school snack bar dates,” “required event dates,” “detention dates," and if it was getting very serious, “sit-at-my-table-for-lunch dates.” In the real world, a nice gentleman may ask you to come "Netflix and chill," which doesn’t seem much different than “come out to the student center and chill,” but he will fall in love when he realizes you are not just a total babe, but highly cultured as well, as you have tried a variety of Asian and Mexican candy, and know how to swear in Russian thanks to all of your lovely international friends.
During those precious prep school years, many hours were spent in the dining hall making connections and enjoying artisanal sandwiches and gourmet meals. Just kidding. The dining hall is a jungle where you let your inner animal on the prowl -- braless, makeup-less, and possibly sweaty or damp from lake water, you would strut your stuff in your Patagonia and moccasin slippers over to the panini machine (if you were that girl that always lingered and “made friends”at the panini machine -- you didn’t fool anyone of your true intentions). But if you weren’t feeling the questionable appearance of “crab” on the salad bar, or if you bit into an oatmeal raisin cookie, thinking it was chocolate chip, the “Build Your Own Grilled Cheese” bar was always a safe haven. Conversations mostly revolved around ways to get attention from that one hot teacher, who you saw walking to “the gardens” together, and figuring out who would be taking attendance at the next mandatory event (and ways to blackmail them, so you could hide in your room and eat Doritos).
The dining hall was a hormonal wonderland of casual flirtation. While you were seductively peeling an unripe or badly bruised banana, a sustained glance from that sexy, yet mysterious Mexican would solidify who you’d be spending the “dirty thirty” with. After four years of stretching out your pants and wondering what “Cheeseburger Pie” truly is, the golden gates of your college dining hall are your salvation. While hearing your new friends moan about the salmon and asparagus, you have decided to block it out as you are happily no longer constipated, and enjoying food other than bread, cheese and cereal (admit though, you miss those Korean beef tacos).
Finally, you have fallen into the arms of real life. You may not believe it, but now you get to take naps in your bed instead of during school meetings. You can burn candles in your room day and night. You no longer need to steal wine from your parents, and you can wear your skirts as short as you’d like without getting a detention for it (or, you know, being so scandalous to single-handedly cause a school-wide skirt ban). If you don’t feel like class on a particular day, you don’t have to put on an Oscar-worthy show to convince the nurses of your deadly disease. I know you’re feeling somewhat naked without your blazer, but I promise you, it’s nice not getting pit stains in your shirts. So come on, you're a product of “prestige.” It’s time to say sayonara to Ma and Pa, and show the world what your school gave you.
