The Euphoria of Freshman year
- Kala Shute
- Apr 6, 2020
- 5 min read
Emma Strong-Conklin
April 6, 2020
There’s something really beautiful about the euphoria I’ve been feeling here. From laughing until I cry about the shitty (literally) bathrooms and what the lyrics to “Riptide” truly mean to dancing in close quarters with complete strangers and playing drunken football on the beach. The elated feeling of happiness is here. I finally understand it now.
Slowly, but surely, the goons that I’ve been spending my time with have become my closest friends. And not just the surface level friends that I party with. They’ve become the friends that I’ve cried with, discussed social/political issues with, and told my inner troubles to. I can trust them more than some of my best friends I have from home. They’re the people I can stay in and just chill with and the people who will rally with me when we want to. This really is the best of both worlds, isn't it?
Last Saturday, all of our lazy asses rallied and left for Manhattan Beach. We fucked around while everyone else got alcohol, looking up the drinking laws for the beach, swimming in the glistening water, and playing die with no drinks. When the whole group got back, it was quick to get the elevated, perfect feeling I was looking for. I loved it
At some point, the magical day turned into a moment that I wish I could have lived in forever. It was one of those moments you know you’re going to miss, even as you’re living it. This day felt like a scene taken directly out of a movie I’d watch over and over, trying to feel the emotions I felt the first time I watched it. All of us, a fucked up group of crossed college students, ran into the ocean like it was calling for us. We jumped around in the ever-crashing waves. The light was ethereal as it flickered off the surface of the water and shined us in the eyes. I’m sure that I swallowed a gallon of seawater, but I couldn’t care less. I was laughing so hard I could feel my lungs and my heart and my soul beating through me with every giggle that left my body. That, my friends, is what euphoria feels like. I’m positive.
We probably looked like dumbasses. Ten kinds fucking around in the water like we were chilren. The beautiful thing about it all was that none of us cared. All of our inhibition was swept away in the water. The tide took it from our bodies and left us with the joy of being in the prime of our lives.
I think it was an example of a Perfect Day. Those kids made me feel so warm inside. Warmer than the sun. I think I was in need of something like that. The beginning of the school year felt rocky at times, but as I was being tossed around by water that enveloped me at the time, I had never felt so grounded. What’s better to make you feel safe than the people who make your heart swell like the waves?
For the first (but certainly not the last) time since coming to college, I felt entirely comfortable calling this place home. Sitting on the beach and watching my friends look so incredibly happy was more than I could have ever asked for. These are my people! This is a gorgeous place that I am so lucky to call home for the for FOUR fucking years! It’s crazy how life works like that. You find your people, you find your home, you find your happiness. It’s beautiful and mysterious and crazy and magical and (quite honestly) hard to believe. Still, it really does work like that for some people.
I read a quote once that stood out to me, but I never had people that fit the description. “There are people who shine brighter than the stars, who change your life in an instant,” it reads. I know that I am stupid lucky to say that I have found some of them.
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I wrote that journal entry after only a month at USC. It’s safe to say that now, looking back on the memories that encapsulated my freshman year, this entry sums it up beautifully.
Freshman year was all about euphoria. It was the first time in all of our lives that we were on our own. We had to be a grown up about how we spent our time. But at the same time, we didn’t really want to. And we didn’t necessarily have to.
I read a short story by Sandra Cisneros in one of my classes this year. In the story, the narrator talks about how she’s feeling on her eleventh birthday. She explains that, even though she might be eleven years old, she doesn’t necessarily feel eleven. She also feels ten, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and three, and two, and one. When we grow up, we don’t start over every time we pass our birthday. We take everything we’ve learned from the previous years and it shapes us into who we are.
On that beautiful day in September, while most of us looked and felt like we were eighteen, we also embodied the innocence and carefree spirit of a nine year old. Focused only on the now, we didn’t care who was looking at us or how obnoxiously loud we were being. It didn’t matter. We all embraced the nine-year-old inside of us and let them run free, even if it just was for that day.
I think that’s what the majority of freshman year was like. It was finding the balance of being eighteen but gaining insights from the other ages inside you to become your own person. It’s learning to accept that sometimes, you need to feel like you’re two for a second and cry about missing your parents. It’s harnessing the dedication that you used during your senior year of high school when you were pumping out college applications in order to finish a big assignment on time. It’s about discovering who you are.
People always say that college is the time of a person’s life that they “find themselves”. You learn about the people around you and you learn about yourself. The feeling of college is hard to explain to someone else, unless they're right there with you. I think that’s why college friends have a stronger bond than high school friends. Especially freshman year friends.
Freshman friends have a different link to your heart than others will. With every formative experience that ensues, these friends are right by your side going through them as well. You are becoming your most individual self, and your college friends get to see you through the entire process.
That is why I will forever look back on my freshman year in college with the largest smile on my face. Even though it may have fallen short, I have countless memories that spark movement in my soul when I think about them. That’s the euphoria I was talking about, and it surely will last a lifetime.
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