The First Week Always Sucks (Even in Europe)
I feel like Carrie Bradshaw, sitting down to write to no real audience and ask introspective questions with no real answer. Moreover, I'm at my desk in a Victoria's Secret silk pyjama top and a pair of sleep underwear. Looking at the part, I beg of myself some semblance of understanding.
I take my hydroxyzine sparingly, the drug was prescribed to me to help with sleep but it’s also an anxiety suppressant. Aware of its powers when combined with SSRIs, only the most sleepless nights merit a dosage. I was still wide awake at 1AM last night, which means nothing to the Europeans, but I frustratingly knocked back two pills. This morning, however, my anxiety had skyrocketed. When I woke up it was as if I was waking from a coma. I will not inflict the boredom upon you, dear readers, of being subjected to the banal descriptions of some third-party dreams, but I can assure you I was still physically shaking when scarfing down morning pineapple and reeling in a state of half-hallucination.
As I sat alone, I chronicled every moment from the past week that might be making me feel this familiar way. I chose not to go out last night, which is a difficult thing to do in a city such as Madrid and in a community such as University Housing. I was proud of this decision but simultaneously aware that this provided others an extra night of bonding- pointedly one without me. I thought of all the conversations I had had the nights before, where I might have gone wrong, and where I might have said too much. I was grateful to be alone, but conscious that maybe it was not completely by my own doing; for every time I left a group, I imagined the conversation that ensued centered solely around me, the rest finally confiding in my errors and annoyance. It is not that I felt fear of missing out, but I was anxious that my lack of plans somehow reflected negatively upon me.
As a peer mentor here in Madrid, I am tasked with emotional support for anyone who may seek me out. Two freshmen approached my table and asked to sit down. After a warm welcome and some minutes of platitude, they finally prompted: “can I ask you a question?”
“Oh, of course!” I responded, giddy to finally put my skills to the task.
“Is freshman year always like this?”
They elaborated: what they initially described as FOMO morphed into deep discomfort in their environments and adjustment. They explained the difficulty of connecting and the immediacy of it all. Peer mentor training left me ill-equipped for this level of ingenuity, for I found myself silent and wanting to confide in them equally, as opposed to offering any advice. And so I did. My first week had not been much different, and despite my years of wisdom I felt equally disillusioned by the premise of study away and college life in general. I was unable to offer much clarity beyond the reassurance that things would sort themselves out, as they usually do.
But then again, later this very same day, I turned my phone back on after going to the theatre alone (a very healing experience, might I add), to two missed calls and a text from my little sister, who is in the midst of her own first week at college:
“Does the first week always suck?”
I almost laughed when I called her back, citing my own feelings and those of the other freshman girls with who I had spoken at breakfast. We spent an hour on the phone, with no real direction other than lamenting the nuances and discomfort of experiencing something new that you wrongly hoped might be immediately perfect.
I have concluded that there is perhaps nothing as daunting, as intimidating, and as vulnerable as the first couple of weeks of friendship. Upon discussion with my mom, we agreed that the proper terminology for this period of a relationship is in reality not “friendship” at all, but just simply getting to know each other. In the age of instant gratification, it is rare to take things as they come. Interactions with others are supposed to “click” or not, and friend groups are made out to be the pinnacle of existence. How do you delineate which lines to cross and which stitches to open up? And how do you ride the wave of social interaction? I have no real answers, just like Carrie Bradshaw never did, but at least knowing that the feeling is universal is a comfort.
