I awoke Monday morning from an unsettling dream; I had returned to Mary Washington as a 38 year old senior. I was surrounded by bright young things who were enrolling in exciting classes. I had a bum leg and was dragging it through chattering masses of 18 year olds.
I believe the bum leg was the depression I suffered through college. I never fully experienced the collegiate lifestyle; I am a Classics major who can't read roman numerals. I drifted through my college days, hazily, as if a bystander in my own life.
Now, I am left to wonder what I could have achieved if I had been able to fully wake up during those 5 years. I don't regret my station; I simply wonder what else I could be capable of if I had the skills I should have gleaned during those formative years. Would I be a better mother? Wife? Would I be moonlighting as an investor? Would I actually be able to be published? I torture myself.
I feared college. It represented change and I had just finally grown accustomed to who I was in high school. My parents divorce had left me under the impression that unless you were in a relationship, you were a failure. I desperately clung to my high school boyfriend, unwittingly drowning us both. I applied and was accepted to a school near my hometown. I was unconcerned with its curriculum; I only cared about its geographical distance to my boyfriend, a rising high school senior. I traveled home every weekend. Teary phone calls, punctuated by promises and pleas, marked my weekdays. By second semester, when I knew where my boyfriend would be going to college, I had formulated a plan to follow him. My grades, remarkably, were quite good so I applied to and was accepted to Miami University of Ohio, a scant 5 hours and half a state away from Josh.
Miami, though still considered a small school, was 10 times the size of Randolph-Macon Woman's College. I was overwhelmed. And terrified by the opportunities that suddenly stretched before me. I was delighted when I mastered my Architecture 101 class and dismayed by the distance which yawned between me and Josh. I met other people, other boys and the hint of knowledge that perhaps Josh and I weren't really meant for each other sent me running back to him and our doomed relationship. Miraculously, I again excelled academically.
After a summer back home, with Josh, I returned to Miami with a leaden heart. I barely made six weeks back. I dropped out and booked a flight home, shipping everything I owned. I called a friend who was enrolled in the local university, Washington & Lee, and asked if she could find me lodging. She had friends who had an extra room. I formulated a new plan, emboldened by my home turf. I would transfer to W&L, break up with Josh, and find out who I really was. However, this plan was thwarted by more poor academic showing as a transitional student at W&L. Further, I couldn't extricate myself completely from my relationship with Josh. Missing of course, was the therapy and medication I really needed. Instead, I chose to try to heal myself, believing that a good relationship would save me. I spent that summer trying to convince Josh that we belonged together, all the while knowing that I didn't believe my own argument.
Somehow, I was accepted to Mary Washington College. I managed to lick my wounds and pack myself up for yet another collegiate endeavor. Josh and I remained on tremulous ground. I thought that living off campus and with the new acquirement of a car, I could manage this go round. I carved a precarious perch for myself at MWC. I wanted to embrace the school but I did not have the history that my classmates had. I had missed the bonding in freshman halls and the joy of returning to campus sophomore year. Yet I found a niche. And therapy. Still, I was not diagnosed as bi-polar, only as depressed. However, it was a start.
My relationship with Josh quietly dissolved, with the occasional spark of renewed interest flaring up. I made friendships at Mary Washington and declared a major. I settled into a mostly easy routine, but there were warning signs. I became obsessed with the gym and also with wooing Josh back into the relationship. I studied hard but partied harder. And when summer approached, I left therapy and my medication altogether.
I spent my summer before senior year, ricocheting between summer school in Fredericksburg, and trying to salvage a relationship with Josh in Lexington. I managed one but not the other; Josh and drifted away from one another but remained loosely connected for years. I entered my senior year on solid academic footing.
Unfortunately, I was not medicated. I focused on the failed relationship and my mental status crumbled. I terrified my three roommates. Finally, as I had no lower to fall, I called upon my mother and told her that I had only way out and that I needed her to help me prevent my own death. I found therapy again, and went back on medication and stayed on it long enough to graduate. But my degree didn't reflect the only true accomplishment I had made in college - staying alive.
