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For future reference, don’t be afraid that people you’ve only just met will think you’re gross if you ask them to slather your lower back in sunscreen for you, because chances are they’re going to think you’re a hell of a lot grosser – and stupider – once you’re nursing a second degree burn down there.
It was the first week of school. I had just returned from an orientation trip to the beach only to discover, upon looking in the mirror for the first time in three days, that I was rocking leper chic hard. I stood there uncomfortably as my new hall mates gave my back the once-over, their collective reaction a mixed bag of pity, disgust, and reproach. The worst part was, I knew it was my fault. Neglect proper application, suffer consternation. It’s a rookie mistake.
Which is fitting, because I’m about as green as they come. I’m a freshman at Pomona, meaning that I’ve been able to call myself a college student for a good long three weeks now. And in that tiny chunk of time, that insignificant little blip on the spectrum of all human history, I have pretty much already run the mistake gamut. I have gone to what I thought was my Spanish class and spent ten minutes marveling at its relative distance from my dorm before realizing that I was actually waiting outside of some random CMC classroom instead. I have headed to the Sontag Greek Theatre for a brief post-homework constitutional and inadvertently stumbled upon what can only be described as a possible reenactment of a deleted scene from Rosemary’s Baby. I have found a mortal enemy in the Oldenborg Center printers.
The other day I was considering these and countless other faux pas I’m sure I’ve committed in the past weeks and wondering how I should feel about it all in the context of my freshman year. The last time I was a freshman, I had pink braces, a brand new American Eagle wardrobe, and the tacit understanding that Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl” (my number one most played track in iTunes that year) was a cautionary tale about the dangers of talking back in class. I have virtually no shame in admitting these things now not because I know I’m wiser (or particularly older) but because they are important to the story of who I am. We can’t wish away the past, and why should we want to? It’s through messing up that we learn how to check ourselves before we wreck ourselves (I mean, look at Ice Cube! He didn’t even have to use his AK today!)
At the risk of gaining a reputation as “that freshman girl” who likes to “quote musicals,” I’ll go out on a limb here and borrow from “No One Is Alone,” the heart-wrenching coming-of-age number from Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods. In it, Cinderella tells her young charges, “People make mistakes – fathers, mothers… Honor their mistakes, fight for their mistakes. Everybody makes one another’s terrible mistakes.” I think those are some of the truest words that e’er were sung. Wallowing in regret provides nice repose from the pressures of everyday life and the necessity of future decision-making, but when it comes down to it, that train never stops moving. Next time you watch one of your classmates break down in class after having done the wrong reading, or yak all over the bathroom, or drop an entire plate of food on some junior girl’s head at Collins, quit shaking your head long enough to remember that it so easily could have been you. And use their less-than-ideal situation as a jumping-off point for your own self-assessment and disaster-management strategies (this is college, people; plan early, and plan often.) Cinderella? She knew what was up.
We are all going to get burned this year. This much is an immutable fact. What I’ve seen people fail to realize in the past three weeks is that we don’t have to burn each other, as we so often do out of convenience or fear or whatever it is that breeds judgment and disdain. We come from different backgrounds, we go to different schools, we have different habits and attitudes towards the world, but we’re all in the same boat. We’re first-years stumbling blind in a big, bad collegiate world rife with opportunity and temptation, and we do ourselves a favor when we help each other out.
My hall mates understand this. It took them awhile, but they got used to my sunburn. They’ve assigned it a gender (male) and christened it Geoff. They are pretty weird, but it’s the thought that counts, and I love them to death for it. Rarely a day goes by without a back rub or a routine check of Geoff’s development. I think he’s finally beginning to feel at home here.
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