In the past two weekends, I visited some of my potential colleges on their accepted students’ weekends. You know when all of a sudden something flips in your mind and your sense of reality turns on its side? Sometime two weeks ago, that happened to me: I had a complete shift in perspective. I imagine this is how Isaac Newton felt when the fabled apple fell on his head. All of a sudden that whole college thing became very real to me. Too real. I guess for the past year and a half, I have gone through the motions of countless campus tours and info sessions, whittling down a list, and even applying to schools, without thinking I would actually go there. Just think, in six short months, we will have a new set of friends, classes, even a new home. We’ll be in college, ladies and gentlemen. College. The “apple on my head,” if I continue this half-metaphor, was probably the sight of other prospective freshmen who might end up as my friends, my roommates, who knows, maybe boyfriends. The thought blew my mind and I could not stop remarking on it all weekend. My mom and sister may have made fun of me a bit. But I couldn’t get over it. In fact, just last weekend, I visited my sister at Villanova (with my good friend Jillian!) and met her friends at a singers/voices gathering. The next day I realized that if I went to said university, these would likely be my friends. I became scared and excited and anxious and freaked out all at once. Like I said: too real. So, as I try and wrap my mind around the perplexing fact of the future charging toward me, I offer you all a bit of advice that I have heard from a man named Josh Maas, don’t wish away your life. College, in all its frightening glory, will come before you know it. And it’s very real.
