So why was it awful? I am a born and bred North Carolinian and moving to New England was SERIOUS culture shock. I was 15, awkward, depressed, and (again) dealing with this seriously different culture. Plus, in 95/96, New England had one of the worst winters it had ever seen. Needless to say, being from NC, I don't do feet upon feet of snow very well. I could NOT understand why I was forced to go to class when there were 25 foot snow drifts all over campus...not to mention the foot or two of snow I had to wade through to get to class. The irony--I chose to go to boarding school.
It started with the summer before 9th grade. I went to a boarding school in Switzerland for the summer between 8th and 9th grade to learn French. It was amazing--the school was on Lake Lugano, in between Italy and Switzerland.
Not so bad, huh? I returned to the US after the experience even more depressed with my 14 year old life. Plus, I met this amazing 19 year old half Italian man that was hot who told me if I was older, he would wisk me away (ahhh, the men of our youth). So, I announced to my parents that fall/winter that I was moving back to Lugano to go to high school and they said, "Yea, right." Persistence has been the blessing and bane of my existence. I began to research and thought, ok, if I can't go to Switzerland, I'll find another boarding school with Chinese (this has been my passion since I was 10). I found the only school, at the time, that offered Chinese on the East Coast. I applied and got in--I can be a smarty pants after all ;)
In the fall of 95, we drove to New England and as we got on campus, I lost all my steam and started shitting my pants. What had a I done! Between many pints of ice cream, lots of junk food, and buying a CD a day, I got through the year. In the words of my mother, I had signed a contract and was going to complete what I had started--you are not a quitter.
So why am I rambling about something that happened 15 years ago...it just got me to thinking. Would I be better off if I had completed high school there? Would I have done more, accomplished more, and be more influential now? Those thoughts, of course, led to thoughts of what if other things had turned out differently:
What if I had married College BF #2 (of course, impossible as he broke up with me on my 22nd birthday)
What if I had married BF post-college and not moved back to NC
What if I had gone to UNC like a good little Carolina girl
What if I had moved to China after college and taught English
What if I had married the Colonel
What if I had married High School BF
What if, what if, what if....
Ok, enough what ifs, I truly have no regrets and have led in some ways an AMAZING life. I have always followed my heart and my passions even if its taken some ass backward ways like living in a farm house in the middle of BFE North Carolina. It's just curious sometimes to wonder and ponder...
As a side note, did you notice that almost all of the what ifs had to do with marriage/men? How utterly stupid and telling of a single 30-something...blah.
Ugh...New England winters were brutal. The shoveling of the snow, the plows up and down the street. I grew up just outside of Boston, went to private school and actually took my SAT's at the very boarding school you're talking about (I think.) I can remember feeling completely intimidated by the surroundings and the people. The kids there felt so much more mature, more worldy, etc. When I was there I felt small.
ReplyDeleteI went to an all girl's school and I always wonder if my life would have been different if I had gone to the public co0ed school. Would it have changed how I interacted with men, would I have been better at flirting, etc. I'm one fo those "there's a plan" people so when I have those thoughts I remind myself that everything happens for a reason. Then I just try to get out of my own way.