Finding Me

Chapter One

With every good American education, there is one place that all students are expected to attend: College. For some people that might mean furthering their interests with a degree that might help them with a future career. For others, college is a time to find yourself. To make friends you'll have for the rest of your life, settle down on a career path, maybe meet the person you're gonna spend the rest of your life with. But, for the chosen few, college is not their forte. That's how it is with me at least...
School has never been one of my strengths and if I had the choice, I would rather be spending my time traveling the world with my dog. However, in certain families college is a requirement. To be truly accepted, there is an expectation that you get a college degree. So, here I am starting all over as a freshman at the University of Northern Colorado as a Criminal Justice major. Despite the previous 12 years of K-12 schooling I received, here I am adding an additional 4 years to the roster. Yay.
On TV, college has always seemed like such a wild time. Parties every weekend, making out with guys half-drunk in a bathroom somewhere, or just getting to spend time with your best friend. This story is like that. I moved halfway across the country to live with my mom and finish school leaving behind my dad, my sister, and most importantly: my best friend. Although this was my decision to make, there was so much weighing on the outcome that I cracked and ended up in the not-so-small town of Littleton, Colorado.
Graduating from a school only a couple miles from Columbine High School, I had a graduating class of over 500 students. This meant that most of my high school life was pretty lonely. I only had two consistent friends and one of them was back in my hometown of Lima, Ohio. Being separated by 1,000 miles makes it really hard to maintain a friendship but I and Alex had been together since childhood. Ever since we were introduced in the second grade, we had been inseparable, always meeting up at our brothers' baseball games. It would've been hard to separate us, a power duo connected by memories and trauma. Even though she was still my number one, the distance didn't help the loneliness. So, I went through high school as a loner. I focused on my grades, joined a club, and stayed out of the limelight.
Fast forward to my junior year of high school. I had done theater for most of my high school career, being in almost every show the school had put on that didn't require singing. However, junior year was gonna be my year. I was gonna step out of my comfort zone and try something new: auditioning for the school musical. Although I didn't have any singing or dancing skills, I somehow made it into the show as an extra. It was here that I would meet my future college roommate: Jacey London. We had a few classes together but had never really spoken until we got the chance to work together in musical. Even with a growing friendship, we kept our space.
My dream has always been to attend NYU as a film major. I had a passion for the performing arts but my family had never been very good with money. Attending college at all required a loan, but it was what my family wanted. So, instead of going to my dream school, I settled on UNC because it was close to my mom and it had the cheapest state tuition. After seeing an Instagram post about Jacey deciding on UNC herself, I approached her about being my college roommate because being with her didn't make things feel as scary. And although it seemed like a good idea at the time, I had no clue what college life would really look like for us.