It’s difficult to find where you belong, or even to figure out if you belong at all. I wish it were as easy as belting out Taylor Swift’s “You Belong With Me” as soon as I set foot on campus, but it really isn’t!
My first day at Wellesley College, I arrived a few days early on a Saturday because my family couldn’t drop me off on the assigned weekday. There were no sophomores or juniors banging pots or waving signs to welcome me to college. Instead, Wellesley College was a beautiful but entirely desolate place. We had no idea where to go, and we didn’t know how to get anywhere either. Where was Stone Davis? Why does “Main Street” feel like a bunch of different streets and not “Main” at all? My brother-in-law who drove me here joked about just dropping me off at the “Package Drop Off” point behind Lulu because we genuinely didn’t know where else to go. “I mean,” he said to my sister with a sigh, “we’ve got a package right here in the back!” (By which they meant me.)
Eventually, my RA at the time, Kari Gottfried, who is now HP (House President) of Bates Hall, found me and guided me through COVID protocols. She also brought me dinner during my in-room restriction. She set some meal options on the floor right by my door for contactless delivery. I remember there being a tuna sandwich in a plastic box and a slice of greasy cheese pizza on a plate. I think a burrito might’ve been there too, wrapped in aluminum, sitting sadly on the floor.
Despite her kindness, I still didn’t know what to do with myself. I tucked in my bed-sheets by myself with a sinking realization that I was alone now – all by myself in a country I had never stepped foot in for more than a month or so at a time. Billboards, rap music, constant English spoken all around me – the sights and sounds of America were so unfamiliar to me. America grated, blinded, and itched – even the clouds seemed to arrogantly saunter across the sky. This isn’t home – how could it be?
But time passed by, and with each day I learned something new. I know where the laundry room is and how to get my free 5 dollar wash from the app. I know where the printer in my dorm is and how contactless printing works on my phone. I know that someone printed lots of Studio Ghibli sheet music, lovingly taped them all together, and hid them neatly in the Common Room piano’s bench.
In the coming weeks, my blockmates arrived on campus too. We were awkward for sure, tactlessly throwing the obligatory introductory friendship-making questions at each other. What are your classes? What do you want to major in? What did you do in high school? What clubs are you thinking about joining? It felt like our friendship was going somewhere but nowhere, stuck in the polite season of friendship in asking diplomatic questions and receiving diplomatic answers.
I got really close to some people that I met – these are people I could give anything and do anything for. But others, I might’ve just met in class a few times and never gotten to know better. We might’ve attended office hours together and struggled over the same calculus question, but never did I ask for their number or their favorite color.
Traveling “Back to the Future”, this year’s Flower Sunday was just three days ago. One year later, I still don’t know if I entirely belong at Wellesley. I’ve joined some clubs and left some too. I am in one of Wellesley’s societies – I’m still unsure if it is right for me, but I hope it will be! One year later, I’ve learned that keeping friends and building relationships in college demands work and asks for effort – sometimes things work out, sometimes things don’t. And that’s okay! That’s okay. At the end of the day, I think I can find my own pockets of “happy places” here at Wellesley. No matter how few or many “happy places” I find in between all of the studying and grinding, as long as there is one person here for me, that’s more than enough for me. 🙂