#IncomingFreshmanAdvice

This was my absolute favorite year EVER. 

Enjoy EVERY minute of it! 

From walking with your posse to forging new friendships at the beginning of every semester’s new classes, everyone is so much more sociable than pop culture makes it seem. This is the only time you’re all ever on the same level, figuring out the physical and invisible high school infrastructure together. You’ve got all the options before you: in relationships, career choices, classes, colleges. It’s the best of both worlds as you can safely explore your independence while having everything else taken care of. What I wouldn’t give to be back in that place where my optimism was full and every possibility inspired me to major in 10 subjects and be ASB President. (I still hold the original seed to that positivity—it just takes the watering of energy and conscious choice to keep it flourishing today :)  

Be in touch with what piques your interest in your classes—this is the best college, major, and career choices come from!

Have fun traveling through groups, meeting new people, and forming your own circle. You will meet SO many people!

Embrace your school spirit and go to football games! This was my freshman year regret; thus, I turned that around my sophomore year and was glad I didn’t wait any longer to start coming. 

Savor the thrill in every new experience, from your first pep rally to those football games that make you swell with school spirit. Having grown-up in private school, I’ve gotta tell you my favorite part of switching to public school—and public high school, at that—was all the guys. I didn’t need any romantic connection, or even talk to them, for that matter, to appreciate the exponential growth from 20 boys in my grade to possibilities at every tier. I relished every walk whenever I could through those hallways (;

Ahh, the guys. Isn’t this where the warning about older guys comes in? It’s valid, I concede, for sure. No, as the past five years roll through my mind, absolutely it is and I see why it always accompanies this point. But, it’s exciting and flattering and frankly, a boost to your ego when you can nab someone older than you. The truth behind those warnings that no one says—“He’ll pressure you,” is a common one—is that older guys will want sex. It’s the worry that we’ll almost be run over and unable to stop him or keep ourselves from yielding to sex and whatever other activities that have been brought with his age. Yes, it is accurate to say older guys want sex—but, all* guys want sex. I mark that “all” with an asterisk, because that’s a generalization that can be disproven. I’ve found exceptions in my own life. My high school boyfriend was a junior when I was a freshman, and even though we didn’t meet until the next year, that age difference still existed and those warnings of “older guys” continued on, too. I guess I never saw it as a problem; mentally, the guys two years older than me where closer to where I was. But, anyways, if I wanted sex, I could’ve gotten it, but I didn’t and I told him that from the time boundaries came up in our conversation. 

And he still met my parents.

And he still wanted to date me.

Regardless of your stance on boundaries, a good guy is one who will respect even the disagreeable elements in you; one who will sacrifice for you, because that’s where true love finds its foundation. Don’t be dispensable! You are never too young to respect for yourself and stand for nothing less. And I suppose a better piece of advice is don’t see yourself as dispensable. You’re not just like “every other girl” who can offer what “every other girl” does. No, there’s an infinite combination of things that compose you that no one can replicate. 

My advice on freshman year dating is have fun! Be smart and be safe (<--It’s one of those things you tell people, and you know they know it, but you only feel right in yourself if you know you made sure and told them.) Trust your gut and intuition; if someone gives you a creeper vibe, don’t abandon it—listen to it and act accordingly, no matter if you’re friends make you feel stupid or tell you there’s nothing to worry about (I can attest to this every weekend when I go out with my friends…and my constantly turning head, mace, and taser). I shake my head and always remember I have a family to get back to and life to move forward in. I won’t let anyone’s comments make me feel stupid and compromise my safety. I cannot advocate self-defense education enough; I took a course help fulfill my PE requirement for high school/college and it was the best class I’ve taken in my educational career. Never take a drink you didn’t pour yourself, whether it’s at a party or after turning you back at a restaurant! 

Freshman year is the time when everyone is the most forgiving in forgetting mistakes and erasing embarrassing moments…for the most part. Getting your private life found out (viral hook-up news or enough to give you a reputation) is a branding and will be the one continual uphill climb; honestly, it’s more like a vertical climb, where you look straight up and you’re told, “Climb.” I believe the possibilities in all things, but I wouldn’t put stock in people’s perceptions of what I want. I say this because I don’t believe the “slut” label is one you can get off of other people’s view. I wish no one would be cruel and realize there’s a human being behind every whisper and enlightening look. But, we graduated last spring and when we see girls from our HS class on Facebook, that distinction is still present as certain “she’s” come up in the newsfeed or search suggestion. For this, I encourage you to go in with your eyes wide open where it concerns your conduct in realizing the full severity of getting physically intimate with someone else and “penalty” of this social conduct code that is everyone else’s judgment, from having “text sex,” sending almost or fully naked pictures or videos, even video chats (there is Skype chatting recording software now) to in person kisses, hugs, and everything that takes you to sex.  

On another point on the social spectrum, you do meet a lot of new people, and the transfer of middle school friends to high school has been the focus of many middle grade and YA books. It’s sad when people you used to know change and everything with them becomes past tense. Thank goodness high school is so large that you will find your people; I couldn’t believe it actually happened so naturally and that it did, period! It can take trial and error or marrying individuals from different groups. A lot of new friends come from classes, people you recognize at lunch, meet at orientation, neighbors who ride your bus, or like individuals in extracurriculars.  

And, if your middle school crew make the transition successfully, yay! And hopefully you still forge new friendships with people from feeder middle schools. 

If I had to describe freshman year simply, it would be “thrilling.” There are highs and lows; great things and awful things; thrills and falls. It just depends on what you design your path to look like and what inserts itself on the route there. Take risks—it’s not too far to fall yet. Seriously, I mean it when I say embrace and savor each episode of laughter, infatuation, and success. Freshman year is feeding off the energy of the caravan you now find yourself rising amongst. It’s only the beginning! (:

Das Mädchen: The Single Girl's Fight for Decency

There’s a debate within the German language over one word: “das Mädchen.” German—a gendered and case-based language—has three possibilities: male (der), female (die), neuter (das), plus the plural (die) on each of these. Every noun must be gendered.

The controversy over “das Mädchen” is the fact the word means “the girl,” but the gender is neuter—the same gender used for objects:

“das Buch,” (the book)

“das Telefon” (the telephone)

“das Bild” (the picture)

While "the boy" always receives the male, "der Junge," a woman doesn’t get her femininity in the German language—that “die”—until “die Frau” where the definition simultaneously means “the woman” and “the wife,” but it’s best known as the latter, as it’s an address for married women; “Guten Tag, Frau Ziegler,” for example. I find this struggle true in reality as I live the life behind that unmarried noun.

There’s respectability in marriage; there’s no more debate over abstinence, the issue of clothing’s modesty and immodesty speaking for your personality (“prude vs. loose” are the two options we seemed to get categorized in) is like it dissolved away long ago, and you’ve finally got the guy.  

Until then, you’re fighting for your respectability, against the expectations others have placed before you, and the guy as a single girl. With marriage, the overwhelming idea is wholesomeness, goodness, and propriety; that you were worth putting on a ring on. It’s only here that across the board, sex is allowed, pregnancy is welcomed, and cohabitation is expected. (Can the term “slut” still exist in the realm of nuptials?) No one’s questioning your character anymore; if you got the ring, that says something. That’s changing “girlfriend” to lifelong, everyone knows you’re together, partner in child-rearing, with-you-for-everything-that-comes “wife.”

But until you get to that place, the guidelines are invisible and for this, tricky. You want to share your affection (wherever you slide your piece to on the physical spectrum) with someone special, but how do you stay exempt from that branding title “slut,” “whore,” “ho,” and the branches of these labels? What do you do when a guy is stunned you won’t sleep with him on the first date (besides considering walking out the door) and you look around and didn’t know this expectation actually existed? How do you get a guy in 2013 if that is your stance?

And that makes me wonder sometimes how I’m ever supposed to date. I refuse to waste my youth with the paint on my bedroom walls as my only eye contact, but I won’t board a train just because it rolls into the station. Inadvertently, it’s like you’re penalized for not settling—for whatever reason, you’re rewarded with loneliness.

Why am I punished for who I am? Why must be this payment for what I want?

In every new possibility, you must draw up who you are and see if you’re accepted. Oh, it is and *should* be the other way around, too—you have a choice in choosing or passing on him. But, when you’ve already put your bid in, it’s a two-way street to see if it’ll be accepted in return. In our decisions and responses to opportunity, we are having to constantly prove our decency and then be commended or punished for it. We have to prove we’re not like every other girl.

Arguably, yes, it’s a great to have that test that is whether you’ll be accepted for who you are. You weed out who’s willing to go the distance, who is the good guy; you have a guy who you’re not having to bend for, but rather, he’s bending for and respecting you.

But, the process to get there (right now, at least) seems long, dull, and solo. It seems half the battle is finding someone with real romantic potential. Then once you *finally* get there, it’s like, am I really going to risk losing them by objecting for who I am? How could I come this far for it to be vain?

Who you are can be anything: someone holding the realm of sex, the place where physical and emotional affection meet, until marriage; someone who vows to be asked out in person, because that’s asking for bravery; someone who doesn’t think quitting in the middle of texting is okay; someone who won’t sacrifice their religious relationship, belief, or creed.

Whatever you’re holding out for, I hope you cling to it. It’s cynical to say that the cause will be around longer than the guy, but I’ve found that to be true and was overwhelmingly thankful I didn’t abandon it afterwards. But, sometimes the emotional and social investment for what you really wanted will be in vain and the reality is it hurts. And there are a thousand different ways to describe that pain. Why did it have to come this far not to work out? Why was it allowed to happen in the first place? How the you-know-what am I supposed untangle myself now—and when I don’t want to?

I’m waiting on my own return for holding out. When will the reward for my “wise” choices come? When will there be no more distance in its travel, in physical space and time, but finally be delivered to me?  And rather, when will he, who I only know in one date, conversations over cardio, the most coveted iMessages, and in believing faith, decide I’m worth it? In every moment, I pray he’ll meet me where I stand.  

Is dating just a series of informal presentations of who we are in conversation that lead to marriage, the master key to take part debatable activities and leave behind having to answer all questions of our image? Is that where the battle for owning our decency ends?     

II. No One Can Convince You of the Life YOU lived.

People often judge us with the word “should.”

“You shouldn’t like him,”

“You should get over him,”

“You should join X,”

“You should do Y.”  

Should. Should. Should.

This word implies an obligation.

I had a relationship that I never felt proud of in front of my friends; it was somewhere between dating and going steady. Getting to once again hold someone I thought I’d lost and having a connection still exist after high school, I thought it was fine! My heart was already two-and-a-half years in, so he was like family and the unconditional affection was there. On the horizon, it seemed like things were striding closer and closer to being once again “official,” so I felt I could honestly answer the question of, “So, what’s been going on in your guy life?” as it began coming up at coffee dates.

But, it was always—and only—behind a venti decaf Americano that I felt like my relationship wasn’t legitimate. It was when I had to put “us” into words that I felt judged and more accurately, “accountable” to my friends. In my heart, he was more than boyfriend and it sickeningly hurt when my friends and I would be talking about issues within our associations and when a comparison came up, the conversation would be appended by, “I mean, you guys aren’t official, but it’s kind of similar…” In front of them was the only time I ever felt the need to classify my relationship; and I mean, I felt that “need.” I began dreadeding coffee dates and texts for “updates” (“How are things going with Z? :)” I hardly knew what “we” were, so to have to explain it to my girlfriends? (It’s only a year later now that I can confirm it was “dating”—going out and getting to know someone. Yet, so much more than that--and the defining process continued!) But, I honestly didn’t even think there would be backlash, loving “warnings,” or any flak from them. It was when I couldn’t call him my “boyfriend” like they could theirs that I first saw the distinction.

Yet, how? My heart suffered just as much, my happiness was just as much, if not, more! So, my relationship couldn’t count or hold a full weight just because he wasn’t my official “boyfriend?” I was just as faithful and devoted, goodness, if not more; like I said, I’d invested in him long before they even met their current romances!  

No one was in my mind during those Starbucks dates except me: feeling like I owed them an explanation (and a better one than I held in each instance), feeling inadequate, sensing their “label” suspicion. And afterwards, it was only me feeling the stress of how I’d presented myself, the thrill of getting his text that night, and the joy of finding myself once again in his arms under the moon’s grin.

Only I was there. Only I know how those things made me feel, whether it was feeling judged and what I did with it afterwards as well as knowing he, the number one I wanted, loved me and I had the purest happiness, not settling and sacrificing nothing, and that was the bottom line. Only I knew what thoughts were running through my mind. Only I have my perception. Only you have your perception.

My friends can tell me one thing and it might be true—but, it is only true when I check it against the truth *I* know of *my* life and find its existence. It’s difficult sharing things with friends and coming to a conversation place of “agreeing to disagree”—about your own life, no less! Our friends love us and will fight tooth and nail to protect us. I often had to remind myself of that; to take a moment and step in their sneakers and flats and know it was all from a place of loving me and wanting me to have the best, especially before I let the anger and hurt rise within me. It’s only this knowledge that simmers the boil down into stillness. In this case, it was just wishing I didn’t have to answer for what had been a long time my private garden, palace, and universe of still-knowing smiles and an always growing bond.

Let all things in your life be approved by you—not anyone else. It is your life, your decisions, and your happiness. You are the one in your skin who lives with these things. Our friends and others in countless categories around us can advise us, but they don’t wear our skin or our “life.” They can tell us they think, want, and believe about our own life, but are they the ones who are going to live it? Before you accept the “constructive feedback,” “warnings,” questioning, or negative words and statements people say, check it against yourself and your life. That’s why the possessive pronoun in front of that wonderful noun—“life”—is about you.