The First Day

The First Day is almost always exciting and nerveracking. The very nature of it is unpredictable.

What is my first day of school going to be like? You could guess what it will be like, make inferences from stories you've heard or read about other people's first days of school. But until you experience that first day, you will always be making a guess, never know for sure what it will be like.

The first day of college is generally expanded (whether good or bad) into the first month, semester, and year of college. I think that college, more so than elementary school, middle school or even high school is very different for everyone. One person may love college and never want it to end, while another can't wait for it to end and enter the "real world" - and what is the real world anyways? They say welcome to the real world after you graduate college, like it's supposed to be something great. But for me the "real world" was debt, living at home with my mother after a summer of depression and alcoholism (one month in which is still blacked out of my memory, 5 years later), and working in nursing homes where my mom was the "boss" and other employees called me cracker and rich white girl (solely because my mom was the boss - Would they still call me that if they knew how much I owe in student loans, and that for three years of graduate school I lived off $80/2 weeks?) For me, the real world lead to another abusive relationship which reminded me of my own strength that I had just learned I had only 6 months before. "Welcome to the real world" - yeah great, let's go back to the other one - and so I entered graduate school.

My first day of graduate school was frightening. I sat in my first MFA class - Techniques of Non-Fiction and frantically scribbled down every writer name that my professor and classmates mentioned in the hour and 45 minute class. I hadn't heard of any of these writers before and knew that I needed to know them to succeed. I was terrified - Do I know anything about creative non-fiction? My first assignment brought on tears and snot and so many wasted sheets of paper I probably killed an entire tree with just that one assignment. How am I going to make it through three years of this?

Then I did, and I was defending my thesis and amazed at how confident I felt standing up in front of my peers and professors and committee discussing my - yes, my own - writing. I was amazed at how far my writing had come and how much I learned in just three years. Without realizing it along the way, I became a writer, an MFA graduate, and a person who could write, speak, critique and teach creative non-fiction writing.

My first day on my new job, my new career in Student Services, was overwhelming - there was so much that I had to learn to be successful at this job. The first month I constantly brought home reading so I could learn the job and be able to answer questions without going to ask someone else. Now, I am the "expert" people turn to, I am the one that writes and changes policies, I am the one that my boss brings extra work that she can't get done, and after only 2.5 months, I am the one that she wants to give a promotion.

Here's to First Days and the excitement and freight that they always bring.