Life Lessons

I had made the wrong choice for myself with the college I chose to attend.  In my haste at getting away from Mom, and small town life in the Sierra Gold Country, I hastily chose a school based on location, size and safety.  

The Santa Barbara beaches were soothing.  Some nights, we'd bring our sleeping bags down to the sand and crash on the beach.  Other days, we would just work on our tans.  The iconic Southern California palm trees and beach lifestyle was exotic, and I felt transported.  

Montecito, on the other hand, was high in the hills.  Often, the Santa Ana winds would blow down the ridge and the heat would radiate off the landscape.  Our school was surrounded by wealth; the mansions and grounds of the surrounding neighbors were unlike anything I had ever seen.  It was rumored that Jane Seymour, Kenny Loggins and other celebrities lived nearby.

By now I knew that I didn't really believe in God.  How the hell did I think I'd tolerate a Christian college of 1200 students?  I had often found comfort from friends who were believers; there was my friend Heather during our time in Moses Lake, who would often invite me to her family's Baptist Church.  I would happily accept, if only to get away from Mom and Joe and their constant arguments.  My friend Christine's family ran a church camp not far from my grandparent's house, and we would spend lazy summers there near the pool and getting high off sugar from the self serve soda fountain.  

But the Christian College scene was completely different than I had anticipated.  My roommate and her friends seemed as if they had been eagerly awaiting the day they could escape the structure of their home lives, and lived a wilder existence than any of the kids I had known in high school.  Every night, they would find somewhere to go and drink until they stumbled back to the dorms in the middle of the night, slurring words and giggling loudly.  This routine quickly became boring to me, and reminded me of Joe's middle of the night interruptions.  I began to have trouble sleeping, and found myself pulling away from the group.  I found the Christian lifestyle to be repulsive in that the folks I encountered during this time were some of the most judgemental, inconsiderate and entitled people I had ever encountered.  

During this time, I often wrote to Mike, and he was just as diligent at staying in touch with me.  I would often grin with excitement when I would go to collect my mail and see his familiar scrawl staring back at me.  His time at Berekeley sounded familiar to my own experiences, as he was familiarizing himself with the campus, meeting new people, and engaging in interesting course work.  I missed him, but I knew that it was unlikely that we would continue to correspond.  As the semester waned, I was beginning to receive fewer letters, and only the occasional postcard from him as he focused more on his school work, and making good grades.

During a break at Thanksgiving, I made the trip home by catching a ride with 2 girls from Sacramento.  Mom picked me at a diner and during the drive home carefully explained how my sister had moved into my (old) room.  I was shocked!  I didn't have a room any longer?  What about all of my things I hadn't taken to Santa Barbara?  And did this mean that I could never return home?  I knew that things weren't working out at college, and so I explained my plan to move in with a friend from high school in Davis.  I would start out at City College in Sacramento and then later transfer (possibly to Davis.)  Of course, Mom tried to discourage this plan.  She thought that I had started something in Santa Barbara and that was where I was meant to finish it.  But I knew I couldn't last down there.

After the break, I drove my VW down to Montecito.  At the end of the term, I loaded up my car with all of my belongings and made the return trip North.  The apartment my friend and I were to share in Davis was downtown, walking distance to coffee shops, book stores and bars, and we would each have our own bedroom.  I was excited!  She was studying Spanish at UC Davis, and was looking forward to having me as her roommate.  Secretly, I was happy that I would be less than an hour from Mike.  I missed him terribly.