Mosquitoes and boiling heat--no scalding heat.

The matchbox of a room that was now mine was just that. Smacking at my arms to stop the mosquitoes from eating me alive, I was unimpressed.

I expected the movies, an area teeming with hopeful, freshly graduated faces.

Instead there were trees, mosquitoes,a too small room, and despair

The air conditioning would take weeks to be fixed.

 

It was late--we were tired. Back in the car we go.

Driving through the new city was exciting yet terrifying.

Big beautiful buildings masking the pain and hurt of gentrification.

The night was full of tossing and turning in the big hotel bed.

A new life--my new life would officially begin the following day.

 

Back in the matchbox, was a fresh and friendly face. Her belongings spill from her bed to our floor.

We introduce ourselves and shyly move around one another, unpacking our old lives into our new ones.

And then it comes.

The final hour.

This feeling was new.

It was odd to say the least.

Eighteen years of living the same routine, suddenly interrupted.

No one ever talks about the feeling of leaving your family behind.

 

You don’t feel it at first. The cold, panic sweeping through your body.

It’s all you wished for when you didn’t get your way.

But now that it is officially happening, you panic.

They’re saying goodbye and you’re hugging and crying and the panic sets in.

You think you’ve made the wrong decision; you’re too young to be on your own.

Why would your parents let you do this?!

 

Until one day you’re sitting in the cafeteria by yourself and then your first real friend who just gets it asks you to join her for a meal.

It’s then when you realize--it’s then when I realized that this was just the beginning.

Studying for midterms, finals, enduring block classes, and making mistakes literally make your first year in college fly by in a blur

Suddenly, you’re not a kid anymore.