FD5: Freedom to Live and Learn

YuBin Sol
FD5-Memoir
11 December 2009

Freedom to Live and Learn

College is supposed to be a time of growing up into adulthood, finding oneself, preparing for the future. For me, college was an escape from home. An escape from all the rules and restrictions that were placed on me as long as I stayed under the roof of my parents. I couldn’t wait to break free from the invisible prison that I felt, being sheltered and prohibited from doing things that I wanted to do. I didn’t care where I went, as long as it was off this rock and somewhere in the massive continent. My very first semester, I was enrolled in the University of Northern Colorado. [THESIS] Little did I know, that one semester threw me on the fast track to growing up. [THESIS]

Mililani was my hometown for as long as I could remember. There, I had all my friends, the comfort of a town I was familiar with and felt safe in. And then one day in January during my sophomore year of high school, my father announced to me that we were moving to town. The very next week. I felt so appalled that he and my mother would decide everything themselves, and not even care to inquire for my opinion. I felt desolate, to leave my friends, and even more scared to go to a new school. I had never been challenged to face something of this capacity on my own, without the safety and protection of my two older sisters who went away to Wisconsin for college.

The very first day of junior year at Roosevelt High, I felt all the wondering eyes on me. I was so scared, not confident in myself to make new friends. There was one girl I did know, and as my luck would have it, she wasn’t in any of my classes. The rest of high school was a dread, a day to day struggle, and I didn’t have a set group of friends that I really liked. I was a floater, making acquaintances, but no real friends.

My best friend Kelsey from Mililani and I kept in touch, promising each other to be best friends for life. I knew she wanted to go to a mainland college too. So we applied for the same schools and decided that whatever we both got into, we would both enroll in. I didn’t care where I went, as long as it was away from here. So she picked University of Northern Colorado because they had a Western Undergraduate Exchange program, which gave what was really a huge discount on the tuition.

As soon as we got there, I was so excited. Not excited to start my very first year in college, but excited to be away from the strict supervision of my parents, and to finally be on my own. My freedom came at a cost. If I wanted to be on my own, I would have to provide for myself and pay for my own way. Of course, that was the way with my sisters too, so I knew that provision would have been applied to me as well. I looked around campus to find jobs that would pay for my tuition. And ended up with three jobs—a server at the dining hall, an associate of the Asian/Pacific-America Student Services Center, and a receptionist for my dormitory hall’s front desk.

Unlike my final two years of high school, I made friends easily, with the people on my dormitory floor. Kelsey was assigned to another dorm hall, but that didn’t faze me. I was determined to shed my old image of shy, quiet, reserved YuBin. I wanted to be what I wasn’t in high school. Popular, outgoing, fun, and I wanted people to really like me. In order to socialize with my peers, I dragged Kelsey with me to keg parties that the frats threw, and Hawai’i parties. There was an abundance of Hawai’i people there, and they formed their own club.

In Greeley, Colorado, was where I first took up smoking and drinking. Even when the weather turned so chilly and dry that the skin on my hands would crack, I went outside to smoke with my dorm neighbor. Kelsey, a couple of girls across the hall, and I would all hang out together, going to parties, getting piss drunk. My shift at the dorm front desk was assigned as Fridays, from eleven at night to three in the morning, and Sunday mornings from three to seven in the morning. Kelsey and I would party as hard as we could, and I would go to work at the front desk, so drunk out of my mind, I would often pass out because I just couldn’t stay awake any longer. Kelsey would sometimes join me at the front desk, and we would play Connect Four, or Uno—games that the dorm hall rented out for free to the residents.

I was addicted to my newfound freedom, and also the feeling of alcohol running through my blood. And it began to interfere with my studies. Not only the partying, but working three part-time jobs took a toll on me. I couldn’t manage my time well, and every bit of free time that I did have was spent drinking at parties or nursing my hangovers. When I figured out my grades weren’t satisfactory, I knew my parents were going to force me to come home. This depressed me even more, and I drank on a daily basis.

Everclear, a grain alcohol, is illegal in Hawai’i, for its ridiculous amount of alcohol content. But Kelsey and I were champs, having built a high tolerance; we tried it, taking a couple of shots and chasing it with a soda. I had the remaining Everclear in my room. One night in early December, scared of what was to come, facing my parents and the look of disappointment in their faces, I wanted to drown my fears in that half-empty bottle of Everclear. I chugged a couple of swigs of alcohol, straight from the bottle; as much as I thought I could handle. And then I walked over to my neighbor’s room and passed out.

I woke up on the cold, hard, tiled floor of a bathroom stall, with my cheek on the toilet seat. I was conscious, but hardly remember anything. Through recounts from my neighbor and friends, apparently, they thought I had alcohol poisoning. So they called the Resident Assistant, who called an ambulance. Paramedics were trying to pick up my dead weight to put me on a stretcher. An IV was shoved up my arm and I was taken away to the hospital.

There, a psychiatrist came in to talk to me about the scratches I had on my arm. She thought I was trying to commit suicide by alcohol poisoning. I tried to explain to her that I had a cat, and whenever I gave my cat a bath, she would scratch me. And that was the truth. The psychiatrist gave me an ultimatum to go to counseling, or I couldn’t be released. I tried to reason with her that if I tried to kill myself, there wouldn’t be any scratches, but deep cuts and scars on my wrist. Frustrated with the whole situation, I signed the forms she gave me.

I never went to counseling. My mom called me right before the semester ended. Apparently, the hospital sent the bill back home, and she freaked out. She didn’t know I failed one of my classes and would be suspended from the university, but she ordered me to come home anyways. I dreaded going home.

In just one semester, I did everything I had ever wanted to do to rebel. I smoked my first cigarette, I went to a real keg party, got drunk, failed my first class, and really, lived on my own, doing what I wanted because I was making my own money. My mother sees it as a wasted semester, a waste of money, a waste of time. I see it as a stepping stone, experiencing things that every freshman does. I got my first taste of freedom and really lived through it all to learn that it was okay to fail, as long as I got myself back up and finish what I started.