By: Victoria Lauria
Picture this. It’s the first of the month and you’re in the middle school cafeteria. You open up your lunch box, and you see Oreos. You don’t question the fact that your mother never buys Oreos because you are too excited to have a tasty treat during your long day as a moody tween. You take your first bite and a minty aroma catches your attention. You are immediately grumpy again because, in your opinion, mint and chocolate are a terrible combination of flavors. By the time you swallow, it’s too late - everything is coming back up onto the table in front of your friends. You realize it’s not just any first of any month of the year, but it’s the fourth month. It’s April Fools Day: the national holiday that makes it acceptable for your mother to replace the delicious filling of the Oreo cookie with mint toothpaste. Yup, that was me. Mortified, but laughing it off and blaming my mom for being a trickster, I tried not to think of how humiliating it was that I just spat up in front of the entire 7th grade.
Luckily, I’m at college making my own lunches now so I won’t be getting any suspiciously strong-smelling “mint” Oreos in my lunchbox. But not having my mom around to prank me also means she isn’t around to welcome me home from school, do my laundry and dishes, or tell me what to do. She definitely isn’t here to tell me when to go to bed, wake me up when I sleep through an alarm or drive me to school when I miss the bus because I slept in. Yup - this is college, the independence we have been searching for our entire lives.
No more moms and dads - freedom. Literally, nobody tells us what to do nowadays besides those heinous assignments professors give us on the first day of classes, when you get lost in the neverending sea of syllabi. But even professors don’t tell us that we have to do anything, they say something along the lines of: “You guys are paying for this, so try to make the most of it.” And for the rest of the semester, it is up to us to make our own decisions. While I don’t miss unknowingly consuming toothpaste between chocolatey crackers, I do kind of miss the instruction that comes with living under the roof of my parents. Along with the growing pile of assignments comes the social pressures of being a college student at a big party school like Umass. Some of us feel like we are floating, lost far beyond the syllabi. A lot of us just float away in an ocean of students, rafting with others because being strong and swimming to shore on your own would, well, make you stand out from everybody else… and that’s…
…embarrassing?
NO! It’s not embarrassing. At least, it shouldn’t have to be. Believe me, I’m the first one to turn red and start sweating when it comes to presenting a project on my own, being singled out in front of a classroom, or meeting somebody new. But standing out isn’t an embarrassing thing if you are being your natural self, if you are striving towards your goals. It’s a good thing to be comfortable existing, speaking, and breathing in your own skin. It’s an amazing thing to be able to recognize when you are simply following the crowd. Maybe you don’t want to go out and party on a Friday night, even though it seems like EVERYBODY will be going and having a good time. If your social battery is running low, it’s not embarrassing to be the only one of your friends that stays in for a night to do some self-care. It is important to recharge your energy so that you can not only feel yourself, but be yourself. Maybe you just want to chill and watch some Netflix with your roommates. This past Friday night, I watched a competitive baking show called Is It Cake? with my housemates, and it was a great time. The ultimate winner of the competition (spoiler alert, sorry), Andrew Fuller, is one funky dude, elaborated by his thick beaded glasses, green mohawk, and colorful style. He had some inspiring words about the importance of being your true, authentic self, even if that means being different:
“I’ve never come this far in something. And I feel like I’m finally stepping into the person I’m supposed to be, and it’s just a cake show but this is huge for me… I just feel so humbled by this experience, and I feel like I’ve kind of proven that I don’t have to fit in with everybody else. You can still reach for whatever weird, wild, totally ridiculous dream you have, and you can achieve that. This has been the ride of my life.”
So it’s April Fools Day again. I don’t mind if I get tricked this year, as long as I’m not fooling myself. It’s a good checkpoint as it has been 3 months since we made our New Year's Resolutions, and we are about to blossom into the beautiful spring and summer months.
Are you still working towards your goals? Are you doing what makes you happy? Are you taking care of yourself, and recharging when you need it? Are you being yourself, even if that means being different?
If you answered “Yes” to these questions, you should be very proud, keep going!
If you answered “No,” I’m afraid you’re playing games with yourself. Or maybe society has tricked you into blending in, so that you don’t separate away to reach your ultimate individuality. Unfortunately, you can’t fool your way to self-actualization. Don’t be a fool, be yourself.
In the wise words of Mr. T in Rocky 3…
“I pity the fool.”
So, get to work. Your future self can’t wait to meet and talk about how far you’ve come.
