I have less than two weeks left in Hong Kong until I get on a plane and leave for Yale. And I wish I could say I’m excited—I’m going to my ultimate dream college, after all—but I’m really anything but.
How I’m feeling right now is definitely not how I was feeling half a year ago. Back then, I was planning out my extracurriculars, conducting in-depth (when I say in-depth, I really do mean in-depth) research on all the different residential colleges, and combing through what seemed like a million different classes in the Yale Programs of Study. I was so far gone I even marathoned all seven seasons of Gilmore Girls during study break for the glimpses of Rory at Yale instead of actually studying for my IB exams.
What sucks is that so much of that excitement has been replaced by uncertainty and heartache. In all my anticipation to leave my old life behind, I don’t think I ever seriously thought about how I would feel when August 20th actually arrived. So I was thoroughly unprepared when the realization that EVERYTHING IS CHANGING and I’M NOT READY FOR ANY OF IT hit me right smack in the face.
I am terrible at dealing with change. Case-in-point: my sister is going to take over my room when I leave, and I’m sad. All she talks about is how she’s going to redecorate and how when I come back for Christmas, I won’t recognize it at all. Yes I’m aware that this is the most stupid and petty thing to be hung up about, but I’ve probably spent 50% of my life in this room–for me to come back home and not have it be my room anymore is such a foreign and unwelcome concept.
And that’s just the tiniest change. What I really can’t deal with is the fact that I’m growing up so quickly and how nothing will be the same ever again. I still remember throwing a temper tantrum on my first day of kindergarten, and my mom having to carry me onto the school bus while I was kicking and screaming and crying. Fast-forward to photocopying those love letters with Vic in primary three. Fast-forward to visiting the hospital with my aunt and brother the day my sister was born. Fast-forward to singing ‘Let Your Heart Hold Fast during our Secondary Four graduation. Fast-forward to sitting in front of my laptop at 6.04 a.m. on December 16th, logging onto the Yale Admissions Portal with bated breath, clicking on the ‘see most recent update’ link thinking ‘fuck it this is it’, and finally seeing the singing bulldogs video pop up. Now I’m here, marvelling at how all that could possibly feel like both five seconds and a lifetime, simultaneously.
What’s even worse is that all of the above is over. My mom can’t always be there to watch over and comfort me; Vic is going to study at Durham; my brother and sister are going to grow up even more without me there to bear witness; I don’t know if there will ever be another time when all my friends from school are going to be in the same place again. The fact that nothing can ever be like how they used to be is a FUCKING TERRIFYING THOUGHT.
Finally, there’s the people I’ll leave behind. My parents have been dropping hints all summer about how sad they’ll be when their first-born leaves the nest. My sister knocks on my door every day to ask me to play cards/a board game with her. Even my stone-cold brother, who throws me out whenever I so much as step foot into his room, has been talking to me more often. Vic and I won’t be able to see each other 24/7 and mess around in school and have our weekly after-Friday bubble tea hangouts. And lastly but quite importantly (this post has severely downplayed the effect he’s had on my feelings towards leaving), there’s nothing like looking into the eyes of the boy you love, thinking about how blissfully happy and lucky you are, and then feeling that god-awful twinge in your heart when you realize you’re going to lose him in 11 days.
Okay I did not expect this post to turn out so long-winded and angsty. Don’t get me wrong–I know that I’m going to love Yale and that I will have an amazing four years. It’s just this transitional period that I’m having trouble dealing with. You know the photos you see with the divers swimming at the edge of a coral reef, looking over into the bottomless ocean that’s dark and vast and capable of holding both wonderful and terrible things–the diver in said photo is exactly how I’m feeling. At least writing this was therapeutic; I’m going to blog more because this blog is honestly 90% Vic. I also can’t believe she made a list with 42 kpop song recs. Vic if you’re reading this don’t think you’ve gotten away with it -.-
Valerie
valevictorians 