During my first year at a university, I lived in a single room in the dorm. The girls on my hall were fun, but I also needed my own space where I could do my homework and enjoy some solitude.
Still, when the opportunity came to pledge a sorority, I seized it. I thought it was a chance to change my shy, serious self into one of the popular girls. My friends thought I was crazy.
But I ignored them and moved into a sorority house where I had two lively roommates who stayed up late every night. I was up late, too, but not at parties. I couldn’t sleep, full of anxiety and afraid of flunking out. How could I have made such a terrible mistake?
I thought I could change myself by osmosis, as if by being adjacent to people who were different, I could become them. It didn’t work, of course. I eventually made a place for myself in the sorority house, but I’m still that same shy, serious person who was never one of the popular girls.
It’s okay, really. Most of the time.
