blog/content/post/college-retrospective.md

title	date	draft	tags
College: A Post-Mortem	2018-01-26T12:00:00	true	higher education

College, what a journey. I'm not sure if I could tell the whole story that I'd even know what to include. It was such a long and painful road to travel, and a lonely one at that. I was constantly met with challenges, hardships, and roadblocks all hell-bent on taking away any chances of success. In my last 7 years, I've attended four separate colleges, and each had an equal part to play in making me the person I am today. However, each took a piece of something from me that I'll never get back: my childhood. I dealt with so much that there is no doubt that my experiences hardened me for adulthood. Here is the story of my bachelor's degree, starting from my senior year of high school.

Big Fish in a Small Pond: Middleburg Academy

It was a bright and cheery day on the lawn of the descrated Mary House at Middleburg Academy. My classmates and I, all 18 years old and starry-eyed, were dressed like we were having a group wedding. Every boy wore a tuxedo, and every girl wore a white dress, carrying a bouquet of flowers. The antiquated dress code was leftover from the 60 years that my high school had been in existence, no doubt to signify to all involved that we had grown up. Jokingly, in my boyish ways, I was posing in my tuxedo before and after the ceremony. Getting into classic poses like the '007 gunpoint, and the Heisman.

During the ceremony, as our salutatorian gave his speech, I reflected on what a nice time high school was. Confusing at times, but a decent transition into what I had thought was adulthood.

First, I ballooned in height. In my freshman year, 4 years prior, I stood at a mere four feet and eleven inches. At my current "adult" height, I was a full foot taller.

Second, I was excelling at my chosen sport of Lacrosse. After 3 years of literal blood, sweat, and tears, it felt as if I finally had grown into my body. My position on the field, goalie, had previously felt awkward to me. Now playing goalie felt like riding a bike. I went from junior varsity my freshman year, to being all-conference my senior year as well as team captain.

Third, I had a girlfriend that had helped me come out of my shell. I lived my entire life trying to escape my nerdy, videogame playing childhood where I was bullied at little league practice constantly and couldn't shake a feeling that I was never good enough. She did things and treated me in a way that gave me confidence. At the time, she was the most beautiful girl that had ever given me a chance. I was on cloud nine.

Fourth, due to excelling in lacrosse, I had commited to play NCAA Division 3 lacrosse at Christopher Newport. After the CNU coach saw me play in a summer tournament, shutting out one of the best high schools in the country (purely by luck in my opinion), his exact words were "when can you come down for a visit." I hadn't talked to him before, but his belief in me and salesmanship of his school were enough to bring me from confident to cocky. His promises that I would be on the starting roster soon after arriving on campus were enough to cloud my 18-year-old mind, preemptively shutting down any other school's chances of recruiting me even if that school would have been a better fit.

There was a dark spot to high school though, one of my best friends who was also my teammate, and who I drove to school every day, died. He was found dead in his room, the day after saying to me that hardships in his life would literally kill him, and to not come and pick him up the next day.

When I finished reflecting, I heard my name called, and ascended the steps to the stage. As I walked the stage, receiving my diploma from the fourth headmaster in four years at Middleburg Academy, I felt ready to enter the world. My life progressively had gotten better every year of high school, what could college do to me that would be worse than whatever I had already experienced? I saw the light at the end of the tunnel that is high school, an adult life, filled with drinking and a good job and shooting the breeze with my confidence-inspiring girlfriend. All of these delusions of grandeur could only possibly be concocted by a brain still addled with hormones not ready for adulthood, but into the deep I went.

The Summer Before College

The summer wasn't unlike others I had experienced. It was hot, and humid, and not necessarily eventful.

Before graduation, on my official visit to CNU, I was given a packet filled to the brim with weight lifting programs and sprint workouts designed to make me the elite athlete I thought the team was filled with. What I should have realized when being handed the packet, was what kind of man the coach I had been sold CNU by was. The air in his office was filled with threats of being suspended from the team, or permanently benched if I didn't follow the program. Sadly, as a teenager I just believed that was what college coaches were like, and went on my merry way. My first priority over the summer was to get fit.

In addition to my workouts, I had a terrible job at Giant, where for $7.25 an hour I stood in the same spot, scanning food for the townspeople and doling out change. In my tenure as a cashier, I was told to work through my mandated breaks, forced to work in different departments where I had no knowledge, and sexually harrassed. There were some bright spots to the job though, through a smoking habit I picked up at my last job, I got to take smoke breaks with a wonderful man that worked the deli counter named Eugene. Eugene was a Vietnam veteran with only 3 teeth, and told the best stories. His stories weren't just of the war, but also of life. Eugene was very sad to see me go off to college, and on my last day at Giant he gave me his cell phone number saying I should come over and have a beer with him on his lawn sometime. Being 18 and feeling that this was creepy, I said no. One of my greatest regrets is not calling Eugene on one of my breaks from college to catch up and see how he was doing.

With my job, and workouts planned, I had other minutia to attend to. I had to buy my first textbooks ever, plan my very first class schedule, and in general come up with a budget to save my hard-earned minimal amount of money for college. All of these tasks are daunting to an 18-year-old, but I did the best I could.

Wanting to hang out with my girlfriend while I was tending to college tasks, I drove to her house one sunny July afternoon, only to find a familiar car from my high school in her driveway. Confused, I knew that I had asked her to hang out earlier that day, and she said she was busy. Looking inside the car, I confirmed the identity of car owner and went inside. The boy was one of my teammates on the lacrosse team. It's probably no surprise what I had found. My ironically confidence-inspiring girlfriend and my teammate were in her bedroom. Skipping the majority of the following events of the month, we fought constantly and she strung me along after that. I was unable to leave her, convinced that I must have done something wrong. It wasn't until I left for college that I had the courage to break it off with her. After that, I became a monster.

Act 1: Christopher Newport University

I arrived on campus, weary from the summer, but I quickly was rejuvenated by what I saw. The buildings were bright and shiny, with ornate columns gracing the front of lecture halls, offices, and even dorms. There was a great, grassy field that stretched out the entire length of the main section of campus which students and tour guides affectionately called "The Great Lawn" (Shamelessly stolen from UVA, which the CNU president is in love with). I saw people playing frisbee, students laying in the grass reading books, and beautiful girls. I was excited to get started, relentlessly tweeting fellow CNU lacrosse freshmen from my parents' car waiting in line to unload my stuff and take it up to my dorm room.

When it was our turn to unpack, the experience was surreal. My entire life fit into one rollable bin. My parents, siblings, and I rolled the bin into the Santoro hall elevator, past beaming orientation volunteers, and down the hall to my room on the second floor. My new random roommate, Tre, had just arrived and was unpacking his stuff. After introductions and shaking hands with the kid I was to live with for the next year, my family and I exited the dorm.

My mom gave me a tearful hug goodbye, telling me to be safe and careful and that she loves me, and my dad stoically shook my hand. My siblings said bye in their own special way. Eli flipped me off as my Mom drove away, and my litle sister never looked up from the iPad she was holding. Just like that, I was alone, at this weird summer camp type place where I was to continue figuring out what kind of person I was going to be.

College Lacrosse Begins

Not too long after getting settled, all of the CNU lacrosse freshmen get emails from the head coach. The email contained a detailed itinerary of the weeks to follow. We were to have 5 a.m. lifting sessions followed by sprint workouts every other day, and a mandated study hall twice a week as freshmen. Also, the email had information about when the first practices were, and when the fitness testing was, as well as a warning about conditioning.

To say that the conditioning was brutal would be an understatement. Once it started, it would feel like it would last forever.