“Your ex-college is an ex-boyfriend” said our New Student Transfer Leader

I’ve never had an ex-boyfriend. Mostly because I just don’t do the whole “defining the relationship” and “boyfriend” thing to begin with. In high school, I found myself overwhelmed with enough schoolwork and issues back home that it was inconceivable to consider a relationship. In college, I’ve never stayed put long enough.

I’ll admit: I like the idea of relationships. But whenever I have found a guy starting to get too close or around too often, I have the habit of mentally delegating them as a friend (and making sure they are aware of it too) or backing out fast. Really fast. Trust me, you’ve never seen someone “ghost” the way I do. So yes, there have been guys I’ve liked. Guys who’ve liked me. Guys I might have gone out to coffee or lunch or hang out a couple of times. But that type of steady, completely exclusive, Facebook official, relationship that every other college student seems to be cuffing themselves into? I’m Mark Watney, talking to myself in a planet of isolation, on that front.

Teddy Sanders (head of NASA in the novel): “He's stuck out there. He thinks he's totally alone […] What kind of effect does that have on a man's psychology? I wonder what he's thinking right now.”

(cut to Watney on Mars)

Watney: “How come Aquaman can control whales? They're mammals! Makes no sense.”

But I do know this, regardless if it’s been defined or labeled “boyfriend-girlfriend”: relationships are weird and messy, and sometimes it was an unhealthy relationship that you’re happy to get out of, but in other relationships you sort of miss the other person, you think about them and wonder if you made a mistake in leaving them. And ex-colleges? Well, I’ve had a few of those. That, I can talk about.

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In a previous blog post, I wrote about why I decided to go to NYC this semester. I needed a step back from California; I needed to do something with my extra time beyond reporting on the college’s asbestos report; I was tired of hearing about sexual assault on campus in an environment where highly charged emotions bounced off of everyone, snowballing into a giant-I-don’t-know-how-to-feel.

And yes, in New York, there is a breath I can catch in not always having to squint and call out what is problematic and what is people. The lines are less blurry when you take a step back. I’m not second-guessing myself every moment. In fact, I don’t have time to do that between five classes and a part-time internship in Midtown. I’m not constantly stopping myself, not hesitating to think how people will perceive me if I say something, stand up for something, or take up space in speaking.

There is clarity in learning to trust my own judgment all over again.

Moreover, I’m reminded of how resilient I am, how much I can trust myself on my own. I do my homework, sort and wash my laundry, apply for summer work and classes, make grocery lists, stay on budget, fend off cat-callers on the street, take the half-hour commute on the subway to and from my work, cook meals, take extra night-time classes, work as a bartender on the side, take care of myself when I have a fever, stay safe and responsible on a night out without having others to rely on. I learned to file my taxes this year and admittedly, this whole college-in-my-twenties experience has been tiring and exhausting, but I’m doing it and that is all that matters, right?

But it sometimes feels like I’m still doing it wrong. Earlier in the semester, I met with a professor about a potential special major and he asked me why I transferred from my previous college. When you transfer, everyone asks you this question and then gives you their unasked for taking on that school. Professors ask it all the time.

I tried to give him the “quick version explanation,” and he narrowed his eyes in a mix of curiosity and disbelief before telling me that his son’s first choice was my previous college—an academically rigorous, respected, liberal arts college—but wasn’t accepted and ended up at Columbia. I honestly don’t know what to say in these situations. In my mind, I could either trash my previous college to make him feel better that his son didn’t go there (and attempt to establish some comradery with the professor, or have it backfire); or I could say something supportive about Columbia and come off, at best, insightful about the arbitrariness of college choices or at worst, vaguely elitist in trying to offer consolation about his son’s second choice (which I think is ridiculous to think of Columbia as a back-up college). Instead, I awkwardly tried to shift the topic back to fall course offerings. I don’t think he bought it. Smooth.

Earlier in the month, the Opinions Editor for the Columbia Spectator reached out to me, asking if I was interested in writing an editorial about my experience as a transfer. As I worked to condense my experience into a consumable op-ed, something that kept coming to mind was how everything consistently seemed to be going wrong. (You can read my piece here.) But after all, it’s my path that has been that’s been ripped up in front of my face, again and again, patch-worked back together like a desperate, fragmented mosaic of what it should have been. Sometimes, in the cracks, I can still see the pieces of what I’ve lost in the process of changing paths again and again: roommates that I loved, a debate team that I was actually good at, a college newspaper that I was proud of, professors that inspired me.

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Other students change majors; I change colleges.

I’ll never have the shiny college experience that you hang on the living room mantel to dust off and tell your kids about. I won’t sugarcoat how wonderful it is to transfer colleges so many times it feels like you’ll never have a home. I won’t be able to tell them how maybe you’ll find the right college for you. That apparently the right fit exists somewhere out there, ready for you at the right time.

The fact is, I look back at the colleges I’ve attended and I think how perfect they would have been for me at different times of my life. That maybe if I had considered the other college when I was in high school and applied then–maybe I would have loved it as a freshman. I think I would have. I look at the college I’m currently in and I think that maybe if I had chosen this college as a fall transfer and had the opportunity to be part of a community sooner–not being told that I have to wait until fall, when I’m already a junior, that you can actually get involved in stuff…but wait, because we’re not actually interested in taking in juniors, only freshmen and sophomores, sorry.

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This past month, I’ve been faced with the decision of returning to my ex.

I got an email in March asking me if I wanted to return in the fall. I even visited over spring break. I also know that if I come back, I’ll be a different person.

Relationships are weird. They’re messy. Maybe I’ve gone too far in ripping myself apart, obliterating my life over and over again, trying to claw my way back to the college experience I had set before me at first, but it’s already too far gone. Maybe it’s time I sit down, tunnel through the credits, and just get that damn piece of paper with my degree—college experiences and pride be damned.

I never meant to have such a fractured college experience, but here I am.

It sucks because I’m facing the fact, halfway through my college years, that there are a lot of things I didn’t realize that I was giving up at the time that I never got to say goodbye to. When I left these behind in high school or freshman year of college when I decided to take a gap year, I always thought I would be able to find them again, but those opportunities aren’t available to me anymore.  I’m realizing that was my last chance to do them because they really are high-school/college things—I have no aspiration to work on a literary magazine after college and you don’t do debate after college either. These are things I didn’t realize would be the last time I did them when I did, and maybe it’s a little Gatsby’s green light: it’s something already behind me even as I reach for it.

It’s funny because these activities are the few independent things I’ve been able to choose in my life to define me. There was no larger reason for me to pursue these activities beyond my own initiative and choice. I took on these things because I wanted to; I wanted it to be part of who I was—to create an identity for myself that was independent of my school work, family, tennis. I  chose to be a magazine editor, a college debater, a college newspaper staff, a volunteer event planner for charity/philanthropic events, a literary magazine associate editor. Every other influencing aspect of my life, such as tennis, family, academic path, etc. was either inevitable or chosen for me. But these were things that I  handpicked to become a part of who I am. So here I am now, lost, trying to navigate leaving behind these hobbies/activities, and trying to find a way forward that isn’t bereft of this singularly, independent facet of my identity.

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Sometimes, in my head, I imagine the scene from Gilmore Girls where Rory’s ex-boyfriend shows up in New Haven and shakes her into her senses. I never considered myself a Rory-character, but somehow in the back of my mind I keep hearing that conversation over and over again–but for me.

Jess: What the hell is going on?

Me: I told you. It's just this year as a transfer student. Next year, I can get classes I like, and maybe have a shot at joining student organizations in the fall.

Jess: No, no. I mean with you. What’s going on with you?

Me: What do you mean?

Jess: You know what I mean. I know you better than anyone. This isn’t you.

Me: I don’t know.

Jess: What are you doing? Being in a sorority, being at an all-women's college, no Pomona ... why did you drop out of Pomona?!

Me: It’s complicated.

Jess: It’s not! It’s not complicated.

Me: You don’t know.

Jess: This isn’t you. This, you trying so hard to win over professors who can't remember you from the other Asian students, all these class-sizes in the hundreds, not able to join student organizations until fall and even then they're only accepting one junior. We talked about how we never wanted to go through college like this.

Me: You caught them on a bad night.

Jess: This isn’t about the college. Okay, screw them. What’s going on with you? This isn’t you, Helena, you know it isn’t. What’s going on?

Me: I don’t know. I don’t know.

XOXO