We all sat in my car staring down the street. It was an unseasonably cool summer night that July, but inside the car it felt like a million degrees. We all watched as people came and went from the house. Beer cans and plastic cups sprawled the lawn as if nobody had a care in the world. I sat in the drivers seat feeling my heart go a million beats per second. My palms were starting to sweat as the thought of me getting out of the car and to that party.

“Come on Anna, let’s just go in.” My friend had piped up from the back seat. I continued to stare at the house contemplating the decisions. At that moment I only knew one person who was at that party. One person, out of a million other people. We would be outcasted, everyone would stare at us and wonder who we were. We didn’t even go to their school, so the likelihood of us knowing anybody was slim to none. I normally am not one to break out of my comfort zone and just go into a situation unknown. Especially a situation where there are a lot of drunk or high people. This party scene wasn’t me at all. Sure, I like being social and hanging out, but showing up to some random house to meet a friend wasn’t me at all. That summer I vowed myself to change, to become more of a risk taker. It was my turn to do what made me happy. Except, I wasn’t so sure that showing up to some total raging party was something that would make me happy. But there we were, parked down the street behind a long line of cars waiting to go in.

I could hear people talking from the backyard and music thumping from the inside. As we got closer the empty cups become more and I started to panic. We walked in and the music from the speakers weren’t as loud as I expected it to be. People were sitting on the couches cuddling up or standing in the hallway with red plastic cups or beer cans. Your typical college party scene. It was an awkward moment as we walked in. All eyes turned on us as if they knew we didn’t belong. It wasn’t too late, we could all walk out now and just pretend it never happened. An old classmate, came stumbling out from the hallway and wrapped an arm around me washing away my fear of not knowing anyone. He was holding a beer can that sloshed around like there was barely anything inside. He leads us farther into the house where we found a giant gatorade jug on a table and more people that we knew. Luckily, we knew more people since it turned out the one friend I knew was passed out on a swing. A friend handed me a red plastic cup filled with an orange drink. I was informed it was called Jungle Juice, later to find out it’s a deadly drink with so much alcohol and juice you barley taste anything but juice. After one sip I stopped, realizing this was not the time and place to drink considering I was driving. I watched as people I knew continued to get more drunk as the night went on. We obviously had missed the peak of the party luckily so things were dying down at that point. We didn’t stay that long maybe an hour tops since it turns out, crashing a party with judgmental people isn’t always a grand time. But we certainly met a lot of knew people even though they probably didn’t remember us the next morning.

Although I wouldn’t say I got a real feel for a college party, I was just dipping my toe in the water. I never did this sort of thing in high school so to finally see what it was like was fun. It’s funny how easily we are led into peer pressure and the risks we take as young adults. It’s inevitable that in college you won’t go to at least one party maybe more. Although this wasn’t much of a college party, just a bunch of teens wearing hula gear and getting plastered for the summer, we definitely crashed and lived to tell the story.