Nostalgia (12.6.2005)
For me, at least, leaving for
college has been a process similar to grieving.
Sometimes I’m not even sure what I’m grieving over or what exactly I’m
nostalgic for. I couldn’t wait to get
out of high school. I loved my friends,
but I was sick of the drama and the familiarity. Now, I feel like I am “‘… waiting for
something to fulfill the longing [I] feel.
But [I] don’t know what. Just something’” (873). I recognize that the nostalgia I feel is
“…largely dependent on repetition and routine.
You don’t feel nostalgic for something that happen
in isolation; you merely retain a fond memory of it. But things like the sum of what happened in
your childhood…or even the routines of high school life, allow nostalgia to
develop” (872). As I think back on the semester,
I realize that the feelings and emotions I have experienced resemble the stages
of grief that Christine Krogue discusses. My college experience began with
bargaining. In May, I realized that I
needed to be at UT the next fall. I had
always wanted to go out of state, but it just seemed right. While I knew it was a good decision, I was
also unsure. All of my friends were
either going to school with each other or going somewhere far away; I was one
of a few going to UT. I tried bargaining
with myself and my mind by attempting to convince myself that I should go
somewhere else “to prevent loss” (895).
August, however, eventually came, and I found myself moving into my
dorm, alone and scared. Yes, UT is only
five minutes from the house where I grew up, but I wanted to get away, and I
wasn’t sure of how college would be for me.
Most of my friends had left a week before, leaving me in a denial of
“not accepting the loss and refusing to acknowledge it” (895). I didn’t want to believe that they were
somewhere, experiencing something new together
while I was here by myself. Instead,
I believed that things would go on as they had gone on for four years. Eventually, I realized that this wasn’t the
case, bringing on a bit of anger. I
didn’t think it was far that they were all together and I was here, and I hated
that they had developed a new life together
that I was left out of completely. I
hated realizing that “time brings continuity and change, and amidst all of it,
nostalgia has become a way of resisting its passage and the change that it
brings” (877). This realization fist
proved depression, sadness, and reflection, but eventually I came to accept the
fate that my college decision had brought me.
I realized that I, too, was making incredible friends and having
wonderful friends that they would never experience. Yes, they were all still living together and
experiencing everyday together. I would
never understand what they were going through in