Hello all 11 of you on this warm, glorious evening in March. After an extended happy hour this evening with an old college friend, I decided it was time to start sharing Megan Radke - The College years with all of you. I'm just hoping I can do it justice.
The summer of 2000 sped by. Jay Z's song Big Pimpin' was the song blaring out of my 1989 Pontiac Sunbird convertible. (Oh yeah, forgot to mention that little tid bit, for my senior year dad said I needed a fun little car. I saw that beat up convertible on a used car lot in passing one day, and even though it had 160,000 miles on it, dad couldn't resist my puppy dog eyes, and soon that baby was mine!) (Fun fact: When the car was on it's last leg in college and we traded it, the title was never changed out of my name...and somehow ended up in Florida in a small drug deal, that ol' girl saw some action in her time..) I once again had a stellar summer job, I was a park and rec leader for another small local town. A couple of my buddies from high school and I were the counselors, and had a gaggle of children we were in charge of 5 days a week from 9-5. Looking back on it, I don't really know why I thought that summer job was a good idea for me. I could never really tolerate children. Mostly I wanted to sedate them. But I was outside all summer long, again working with my friends, and it was tolerable.
August came way too fast. The night before I left for college I don't think I had ever cried so hard (at least up to that point) in my life. My friends and I decided we were going to go bowling...and I don't think any one of us had too much fun. I was the first of my posse to leave, and finally, the inevitable was upon us, we were growing up. We would never again just drop by someone's house unannounced, see each other every day, nothing would ever be as easy, as it had been up to that point. During a philosophical night by a bonfire that summer, somebody said something to the effect of: In the next 10 years we're supposed to go to college, graduate, get a job, find a spouse and start a family...Uff da. (Yup, had to go Norwegian on you just then.) That was a lot to wrap our little 18 year old heads around. Apparently, for me, it's still a bit much, as I'm a bit light on the spouse/child aspect. Hope to remain light on the child aspect forever...but that's for another post..
I'm not sure how I got home that night, as I think cried the whole way, and could barely see the road. Unbeknownst to me, my parents had been doing their fair share of crying that evening as well. Being the good daughter that I was, I had left all the packing to the last minute and left them with piles of things to load into the car while I was having an emotional crossroads at the bowling alley. Mom had sent dad upstairs to grab the last few things, and after a time she noticed he hadn't come back down. She went up to find him sitting on the end of my bed, holding a picture crying. He looked at mom and said, "I don't think we can let her go.."
The morning came early...as did the tears. The ride to college was a silent one. I remember coming down the hill and seeing the beautiful campus, and just wanting to turn around. By the time I got out of the car it was mid morning, sunny, and hot. Roughly 89 degrees with humidity to match. I had decided I needed to buck up, this new college world was in need of Radke. So I did what any 18 year old does when their parents are trying to be helpful: turned the attitude up a few notches. Which was easy to do because I was nervous, and it was hot as Hades. I went about bossing my parents around, snipping at them for this or that, had lunch with them, did some orientation, while they had something to attend, and finally, it was about 5:00pm. The school was serving a big BBQ for the families before the parents took off. I sat down with my plate of beans, chips and a hamburger, watered down lemonade, and finally took at the beautiful campus. It's nestled in the bluffs of the Mississippi River Valley, old and new buildings were surrounding us as we ate our dinner making small talk...and me, mostly looking at my future classmates sizing them and judging them accordingly. Then, before I had time to control it, the heat, the lack of sleep, the moving, this big life change hit me all at once. My eyes welled up with the tears for the first time since I got to campus, I looked at my parents and in a quivering voice said, "Can I just go home? I don't think I want to be here." Dad let out a belly laugh, and continued eating his burger. Mom, in her all knowing, motherly, way said: "Megan, honey...we just spent this entire day moving you into that dorm, I am sweating through my clothes, I just want to go home, get a beer and go to bed. You are staying in the God damn dorm room not only tonight, but at least until Christmas!" Shit. I was stuck there.
That night I took a cold shower, and was fast asleep by 11:00pm. The next day I kind of felt like a new woman. Things went so fast the first week, I forgot to call my parents and tell them I was okay, they had to call me and make sure I was in one piece, I couldn't help it, I had a new audience to entertain. My roomie was interesting. While we had very little in common, she did respect my things, and space, as I did hers. I was just wanting everything to go smoothly, so whatever I could do to avoid confrontation I did..and it worked out fairly well. I quickly decided I needed to get involved in activities. I joined the student senate, choir, I auditioned and got a part in the fall play, and took a full course load of credits. To say I was a little over extended was an understatement. Not to mention, I was meeting all of these fabulous people and being introduced to college life. Looking back, I treated that first year of college (and years to come) as a big party with a $20,000 cover charge. If I were to do it over again, I probably would have studied a little more, and partied a little less, but hindsight is always 20/20.
That first semester I was declared as a theatre major. Thing is, real theatre majors are a little bit intense. They had me scared out of the department by the end of the semester, and I was onto major #2 in January. Turns out, I had to go through 2 more majors after that before I decided what was going to be my final major, English Literature. I didn't declare that until my Junior year. Which was probably a good thing, considering I was going to be pushing my limits in the English department...soon they were going to meet Megan E. Radke: future blogger...
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