The Graduate

One spring day some years back, I graduated from high school. I lived and attended school in a very small town and it’s hard to imagine anyone else being more excited than me to get out and start living life for real in a real city. The last several months of anticipation leading up to the great exodus had me believing this move was as big as going to Europe or exploring Antarctica or living on the very mysterious east coast of the United States. Of course, all this really meant is that I would be moving 250 miles south to attend college in a city with a population of approximately 60,000. But! I was going with my best friend; we would be living in our very own apartment (with 4 other girls, 3 of whom we knew virtually nothing about prior to move-in); and, there would be boys! Oh, the boys… Finally, after four years of nothing but silly high school boys, we would get to meet real men. Men who go to college. Men who know how to treat a girl right. Men who would be serious about relationships and wouldn’t play games. Men who would be looking to get married. If there was one thing I was more excited about than leaving that small town, it was getting married.

The funny thing about life when you’re a “kid” is that you tend to believe what you’re told without much question. For instance, I grew up believing that the proper steps for me to take are as follows:

         1.       Graduate from high school (yes, everything seems to begin at that magical moment).

         2.       Go to college.

         3.       Get married.

         4.       Have babies.

         5.       Stay home and raise babies.

I’m still not really sure what comes after #5. I was fairly certain that once I had achieved #3 and #4, completing #2 was optional. If success can be gauged using that list, I would say I was 90% successful. Within two years of graduation, I was well on my way to having checked everything off as done and done. I hadn’t yet realized I was sitting on a ticking time bomb. I’ll get to that but let’s back up to the start of my freshman year.

Keep in mind I’m writing about these experiences miles and miles and years and years down the road. There’s much I’ve forgotten about that time but I still remember enough to make me giggle sometimes and, other times, cock my head to the side and shrug my shoulders - some things/people you can never quite figure out. So, I arrived at my new apartment on the appointed day, loaded down with every worldly possession I had decided could not be lived without. The complex was alive with activity. Most of my roommates had already arrived and were settling in. We unpacked and took pictures and rushed our parents out the door so that we could finally start growing up. It was a whirlwind weekend and that’s just about everything I remember about it. Except…

I met a boy. Who would’ve thought? College housing was unlike anything I could have imagined! We met people all the time simply because they knocked on our door. Sometimes they were looking for one of my roommates, sometimes for someone who had previously occupied my apartment and sometimes they were just looking. On one of those first days, a young man dropped by who had known some of my roommates from the previous year. For one reason or another, he and I began talking and seemed to hit it off and just like that, I had my first real boyfriend in college!

(Before I go on, a word or two about the heart of Sophia Dellis: Despite assumptions and accusations that instead of a warm, beating heart, a cold, hard block of ice actually fills that particular cavity in my chest, this is not so. I will grant that when it comes to expressing my feelings “in the moment”, words often fail me [or I fail them]. Too many times to count, I’ve literally choked on the sentiment as it came up my throat and scurried toward my mouth, attempting to splatter on the recipient’s chest. So, yes, I often keep my teeth firmly clamped. It’s something I’m working on. All that being said, I don’t think I’m deficient in the heart department just because I don’t wear my heart on my sleeve. You can pretty well expect that if you are kind to me, you’ll get a piece of my heart.)