It's winter. It's December, finally, and I turned 20 today, although by the time you read this, I'll have been 20 for two days.
The past semester has sped by so fast and the weather has been so mild that it's been hard to believe that classes are ending in a week. It doesn't feel like December. I don't feel like I'm 20. I don't want to leave Amherst yet.
It's funny, because in previous years, I've always felt sick of Amherst by now. By the end of October, I was sick of the work, the town, the food, the dorm life. And while I can't say that I wasn't ready to go home for Thanksgiving, or that I'm not ready for the non-stop work to end, I'm not as disillusioned with Amherst right now as I've been in the past. Just something about this year-my room, the curtains on my windows, the classes I'm taking-has made me happier here this year than before.
It couldn't come at a worse time. I'm leaving for Oxford University in the spring, and the thought of leaving my friends and taking down the pictures in my room-one that has become such a home to me in the past few months-really scares me. It took me over two months to decide whether or not I wanted to go abroad, and now that I've finally made my decision, I don't really feel any more comfortable with it than when I was unsure. There are days when I can't wait to go to Oxford, to experience what so many people say will be an unforgettable six months, when I can't wait to hear British accents all around me and dress up in robes and pretend I'm at Hogwarts. And then there are the days when I wonder how I can leave all this, being able to come home to people I love and know so well, who sometimes know me better than I know myself. It's those days when I see myself stuck in Oxford umbrella-less, not being able to understand what anyone is saying and sick of my 10th straight meal of fish and chips.
My friend who goes to Boston University said she'd decided against studying abroad because she felt like she was too old to start all anew again, to have to meet new people, to make the awkward small talk and be a freshman all over again. "I'm just done with meeting new people," she said. "I have enough friends. I don't want to do all that anymore."
I laughed at her when she said that, and told her that she'd have to meet new people all her life, but some part of it rings true. Before coming to Amherst freshman year, I was so excited about leaving high school, about being able to meet new people and have new possibilities come into my life. I thought that I'd always feel that way, that I'd always jump at a chance to completely start anew, to immerse myself in a new environment and see what I make of it. But somehow, I don't feel that way right now. I almost feel as if I don't want this semester to end, just so I won't have to deal with going abroad, leaving my friends, realizing that by the time I see this campus again, I'll be a senior. I don't want to leave my roommates, leave the conversations we have at three in the morning, leave the Friday night calzones while watching a Friends DVD, leave the 80s-themed parties, leave the coffee and the American dollars.
Is it possible to have reached some limit with meeting new people? After having so many friends who know you so well from middle school and high school and college, is it wrong to feel that it's too much of a hassle to have to go through the awkward process of getting close to someone? Is that cynical? Is that us pretending to be much older than we really are?
Or is it me just getting cold feet?
And I don't really know what it means not to be a teenager anymore. The teens are so glorified in American culture as being the best years of your life, a time when you can make as many mistakes as you want and somehow not pay for them, a time when you're supposed to go wild and be free and not listen to your parents. I've always been a good girl, and 20 seems like such a boundary-I know, I'm ridiculously young for the junior class, but hey, this is my column-and I think sometimes that I haven't been rebellious enough to merit being a teen, that I haven't taken enough chances, that I haven't thrown enough caution to the wind. Can you still make huge mistakes when you're in your 20s? Can you still be carefree and read Seventeen and blow off work and go on the swings without looking like too much of an idiot?
The thing is, I know that no matter what, I will probably regret not going to Oxford if I were back at Amherst in February, trudging through the same snow and the same soy sauce-like de-icer to get to the one table in Merrill where I always study. I don't know what's going to happen at Oxford, whether I'll love it there or whether it'll just be an experience I'll be grateful for having, or whether I'll end up missing home too much to enjoy it.
But I think it's time to throw away the safety net.
Write Audrey at auong08@amherst.edu as she braves life outside the bubble.