Freshman Memories

Recently - thanks to Facebook - a friend of mine posted a picture that was taken 26 years ago. The picture included more than 50 "kids" who had only one thing in common - their affection and bond with each other.

Fast forward to the present and many of us from that grainy snapshot have - or soon will be - sending our own children off to their freshman year in college. And if most of the people in that picture are like me, they now probably recall that first year away from home a little wistfully. We look on our children with some measure of envy for the experiences they are about to share, the friendships they will soon make and the lifelong memories they will forge.

 

Blakely Hall, a small dormitory on the campus of the University of Minnesota-Morris, was our home in 1985-86. I doubt any of us had a clue that late September day of the powerful and lasting imprint the ensuing nine months would have on many of us. We couldn't have imagined then that our freshmen year would be a happy memory we could always visit during our march into adulthood. To be sure, we've had numerous moments of heartbreak and happiness since. Marriage and divorce, children born and raised, job success and failure, health scares, family and personal tragedies.

 

Perhaps that is why Blakely Hall remains so vivid in our memories. Our childhood past was gone, and could be left behind. If we chose to, we were granted the opportunity to entirely remake ourselves that first year. We alone chose our friendships. And we were all in the same boat, together. The future was too far away, and far too uncertain for most of us to see very clearly. Adult responsibilities? That year they were purely theoretical. We were big kids, but with grown-up autonomy. And we drank in that freedom completely and in as many ways possible, oftentimes drenching ourselves in it. With no regrets.

 

Now I can only smile when I think of Blakely Hall. Adulthood was in front of us and we simply didn't know what we didn't know. We were young and invulnerable, and planned to do anything and everything we  ever wanted. We were brash, arrogant, cocky, sweet, charming, endearing, friendly, quiet, loud, gregarious, opinionated, funny, crazy, hilarious, dorky, nerdy, mischevious, determined, brilliant, creative, flirtatious, horny, often drunk and entirely loveable. And for one school year more than half a life ago, we were a family.  We fought together, cried together, struggled together, succeeded together, laughed and loved together. A family in the truest, best sense of the word.

 

It would be easy for me to share many of those specific - burned into my brain - memories of Blakely Hall. But I'm not going to. In some ways they are sacred, just for us. As if revealing them would be a betrayal. On some vague level, we were aware of the memories we were making, understanding just how special that time in our life was, as well as its rarity. I can only hope you too had just such an experience your first year away from home, wherever that took you.

 

And - if you're like me - you want the same thing for your child. You want him or her to create memories that will be unforgettable; with the kind of people you were once proud to call your family.