To arrive alone did not vex me all that much, although my heart felt tender as somebody else’s father held open the door to Ruth Deech Stair 4 for me, before ascending the stairs with his daughter, suitcase trailing behind. I was quite happy to arrive in Oxford in a hired car sent by my mother to pick me up from Heathrow airport.
The Porter who greeted me was lovely and remained my favourite throughout the year. He handed me my Bod card, branded NON MATRICULATED VISITING STUDENT. Quickly removing it from the St. Anne’s College lanyard and tucking it into my pocket, I told him “New Jersey” when he asked where I was from.
This would be my third university in three years, and I was well-practised in the ritual of formulating one’s persona. Feigning the aloof disinterest one associates with the higher order was instrumental to such a task, and though I was eager to be part of it all, I had spent the final months of summer alone, working myself up to be anxious and terrified. And so, I remained at a slight distance while assessing my peers, to evaluate where I stood amongst these creatures, hoping to adapt and assimilate, aching for it to be true that somewhere I might be found agreeable, laughing with many, getting right along.
I had not done as much research as I should have before arriving. I applied under the guidance of an illuminated, dream vision, clouding golden the possibility of such an opportunity, and I did not know of the tutorial system or that the university was divided into all these colleges, each keeping their open, distinct personality.
Aside from the fact that they were all the smartest people to ever live, one thousand times better than myself, and would probably have excellent outerwear, I did not have any idea what sort of people I would encounter. While I spent that first week closely studying these new peers, only my latter assumption was affirmed, and not by any student but by my tutor, who in our first meeting did not remove his knit scarf, leaving it tied neatly around his neck as he disclosed that during his time at Oxford, despite not belonging to any particular lineage, people spread rumors that he grew up in a castle.
As for the former, I quickly realized that, yes, these individuals were enviably bright, but, more importantly, they were incredibly interested people – those with hours committed to their degree and vibrant passions guiding their sense of self. Readily, I fell into step with them. In this new-found commitment to trying, I plowed ahead, ever headstrong.
It would be duplicitous to say that the experience was fully transformative, that I ceased indulging all my bad habits and rolled easily into a sequence of firsts, flipping the world on its head, everything invigorating, fresh and new; though it sometimes felt this way, and I embraced idling around for hours, lapping this well-trodden city, amazed that I had made it here and would have to keep on making it for the year’s duration, thinking myself able, original, witty, unique, and situated perfectly to my current position; I was much too cynical to let this be the full truth.
When this obnoxious, though infectious, wanderlust ceased, I engaged in life as I had in all the years prior: endeavouring to love boys who would not glance my way twice, or worse, loved me openly – too little; too much. Too many hours I spent spiraling (nearly as many as I spent sat at a desk in the Hartland House Library), laid in my bed in that room where the blinds never fully shut, the light hurting my forcefully closed eyes, pondering all that I hadn’t accomplished and all that I never would be.
Playing pretend, I indulged in being someone I was not, slipping onto my balcony to drink instant coffee, Raybans in place, cigarette in hand, thinking how miserable it was that I had to keep up this way, even alone in my room where no one would see. (It is funny now to think that when my brain wanders aimlessly into that same spiral of inadequacy, I pray to resume living in that moment, being who I then was, though at the time I could never believe that this person was my own. I now accept it had been so – pathetically and entirely.)
Of course, dear reader, I could tell you about how pivotal the erudition of such a year was, how it made such torment worth it; I will not. You, as a properly-matriculated student, probably feel what I felt ten-fold. I am sure you will agree even more with the following: challenging it was, grateful I am, but, really what I most remember from those days that extended before me, antagonistic, limitless, were the moments I voided any temporal expectations and let the hours with friends roll on and on, pouring heavy a mixture of Tesco-brand vodka and lemonade, before embarking on hours long games of Catan, or heading out on a Friday to Retreat, somehow finding my way to bed in the very early hours of the morning, the birds singing sweet the blues; I had overdone it again.
Near the end, when everyone got mad at me after May Day because I rehashed the night’s events in full – I could not figure what would be wrong with disclosing that our friend danced close and messy with a girl who was not his girlfriend from university. He seemed happy, really, despite concluding the night with his head on my shoulder, everything else spinning around him, disillusioned and heavy, a common affliction for those who are not used to having too much drink, or are merely far from home, testing the breadth of possibility while it still remains.
I will divulge the circumstances of my night as I figure them, enforced clearly without distracting sentimental expositions. These things are neither good nor bad, and it is beneficial I relay them without judgement, an encouragement to my feeling that they are of a necessary, not merely happened, condition.
In chronology, I started drinking while finishing my tutorial essay due the next morning (it really only had about 500 words and a proofread still to be done); threw a fit about my outfit; was consoled by my friends of better temperaments before stealing their clothes; bit a friend of a friend firmly on the shoulder (which resulted in him taking me on a very long date where he took the full 4 hours to decide he did not like me that much after I did not make out with him in an abandoned church); was mistaken for a homeless woman by friends who were making their way to Magdalen after tucking into a corner by the Ashmolean for a nap with my best going-out partner, who was kicked out of Bridge for being an unknown degree of drunk and disorderly.
But, the sun came up, and all of us were very awake, happy, and delirious. And though the day was bright and new, I could feel dusk already peeking its head around the corner, another year nearly elapsed, summer’s seductive call on the horizon. As I slipped through the secret passage on the way back up to my room, I uttered a final “good morning” and “good night”, before indulging in a mere hour’s long sleep, only to breach the morning air once more, things still to do, another plentiful day waiting to be made.