How many people can say they attended a college for 24 hours? How many people can say 24 hours changed their life? I can attest to both.
Within the first hour of being unpacked on the campus of LIU I was lost Not knowing who I could call to talk to or who would honestly care enough to listen to what I had to say, I just sat and looked around.
I found two people I met at orientation, but I still felt alone. As we went to the “ice cream social” and gatherings that night I felt myself drifting off further into darkness. I couldn’t feel happiness that night. I finally called it quits around 10pm and I walked back to my dorm all by myself in the dark. I took the nature trail and made my way back to the cell of a room.
Once I got there, my roommate was not in the room and there was no sign of him. He was a young man that came all the way from China and spoke little English. Very reserved and he only had two suitcases with him. I stood in the doorway looking in, his side bare and clean, my side overflowing with memories from back home.
I changed into some sweatpants and sat on my bed for a while and the clock slowly ticked by. Finally around 11:30 PM I walked up two flights of stairs to a friend’s room. Her room was filled with laughter and 6 new faces. She invited me to a party, but I turned it down. I am not a party person and wanted to get organized and settled in. However that was the last thing that happened.
It turns out the party Kiara went to was not the only one that night. In the room next to my bed there must have been at least 12 people crammed in. It was now 2 AM and I was trying to sleep. As soon as I closed my eyes I heard pounding on the walls and guys shouting “LET’S PLAY WAKE THE NEIGHBORS!” This lasted until around 4 A.M. when they finally crashed and the entire dorm feel silent.
At this point I had been awake for at least 24 hours and I found myself in a scary atmosphere where I could literally hear myself having a conversation with my conscious. I was weighing the positives and negatives of the school. On one hand it would be a great school academically and I’m sure with time I would make many friends, but how will I be successful if I can’t be comfortable in my own room? I couldn’t think and I couldn’t even find myself.
Around 5:30 AM (after about 20 minutes of sleep) I decided to take a shower. I stood outside and eased my way in. I could not handle it anymore … I started to breathe heavy.
I dried off quickly and sat down on a bench. I sent a text message to my mother and asked her if she would come see me since she was still on the island. Within 2 minutes my father was calling me. When I heard his voice I started to cry. A chain reaction and I could not stop it from happening. He finally said the one thing that would calm me down, “Do you remember what I said to you when you had this same reaction in Spain? I had to deal with this all the time in the Navy, the difference is that you have somewhere to go home to whereas I didn’t, you can make whatever decision you want and I will support you.”
I was so emotionally stressed out, I couldn’t breathe. I dropped the phone. I couldn’t stand it anymore. When the words returned to me, I told him everything. From the jail cell dorm room to the frozen meals in the café to the puddle of vomit outside my dorm room from a drunken college party, I was totally out of place and I wanted to come home.
He urged me to stay for a few days, but our conversation was interrupted when someone walked into the bathroom. “I’ll call you back Dad. Soon after, I got a text from my mother and she told me to come out to the parking lot. She made it to me faster than I thought possible.
That is where I sat and started to think everything over. When she asked me what had happened I told her every detail and it pains me to even think of it now. Fortunately, the tears falling from my eyes are turning into my passage of the future. Without this struggle I would not be back home where I am happy, working in my high school and changing the life of a young man who needs guidance. I am working in the field I want to have a career in and it makes me proud to go to work every morning with a smile on.
Do I ever think I made the wrong decision? Do I ever think about the “what if’s? Yes, when I am all alone, but I was told early last summer that I should not live my life with “What if’s” in mind, I should just live. I stand by my decision to leave Long Island University because it has made me stronger as well as exposing me to what I need to be prepared for. I know that the first few years of college I will live at home with my parents and commute, but eventually I will be ready to go out on my own. Everything happens for a reason, which is why I am confident my eventually will come.
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