Leaving Home

After spending a full session in college, I rushed home two weeks earlier than I had planned. I felt as though an unseen part of me- perhaps my mind, had been bruised and I needed to retire somewhere private and familiar to heal it. I yearned to return to the house I had so desperately wanted to leave. I unabashedly yearned to crawl back underneath the over-protective wings of my parents and coil up. Listening to stories about college had made me feel somewhat prepared for whatever existed outside the confines of the world I knew and so I leapt into college immediately I graduated from secondary school . I was wrong, I still had a lot to learn.

When I was counseled to avoid peer pressure on campus, it sounded easy enough: saying "NO!" to a group of layabouts who want to persuade you to do wrong. I got to college and discovered I had overlooked something significant. It was not saying "NO!" to a group of faceless people who mean nothing to you, it's resisting the negative but enticing influence of people you desperately seek to impress.

The more days I spent on campus, the more naive I realised I was. The things I will now mention may sound silly to some or too inconspicous for me to take time to "rattle on", but i noted them down mentally. I never knew I could sit through a two hour lecture and understand nothing; consider this development late or not, I discovered girls were distractions; In all my life I have been a content person, so it came as a shock when I discovered I envied someone as close to me as a brother; I have learnt never to underestimate anyone no matter how tattered they look, no matter their shape, size or colour. I have understood that sincerity is commendable but not always necessary; I have learnt how catastrophic procrastination of even the tiniest things can be; I have come to understand that the virtue "tolerance" is hard to cultivate, because it means tolerating people no matter how much their views, words or actions irritate you.

Scarred, I cooped myself up in my house. In here I have become grateful for the curtails on my freedom, grateful for every meal on my plate, grateful to providence for all I have recieved, grateful for many of the things I would normally have taken for granted. I have begun to see life and the world in an entirely different light.