The College Alphabet

The first twenty-six posts on this blog came from a high school English assignment: one short story for every letter of the alphabet. They went up quickly because they were already written. And though some are embarrassing (obvious, melodramatic, unedited), others seem to have some real grace. Over a decade later and I'm still genuinely proud of a handful of them.

I've been planning to apply the same treatment to my college experience for years now. I've even written and posted some of those stories, though I have since taken them down. But I have a hard time committing to this project. This last time I came close to making it happen. But things slipped, life got in the way, I started questioning the quality of the stories.

Then I realized that one of the darker entries was scheduled to go up on Christmas Day and I scrapped the entire thing. It was the final excuse I needed to walk away from this project yet again.

Not too far away, though. I did make progress. I generated a good number of ideas.

So it's time to commit again. Third time's the charm, right? Is this the third time I've started this particular project?

Anyway, a few caveats before we dive in. These are for me, more than you. The ten of you who might be reading this blog. Who might care about the baby steps I'm taking towards becoming a writer. A real one. One whose work people want to read even if they've never met me. One who gets paid for it.

These will, essentially be rough drafts. I'm going for quantity over quality here. Write and write and write some more. All of the stories are true, more or less. They're my truth. My remembrances of college, 6-10 years later. Some of you may remember things differently, and that's okay. Sometimes I might deliberately change a name or a detail or something in service of the story. After all, every story is true, but every story is also only true enough. Truth itself is hard to pin down, even in physics.

Along with that truth I should provide a disclaimer. In many ways, college was the best time of my life. In many other ways, it was the worst. I met my people and made friendships that will last a lifetime. I met my husband. I was blessed with more friends than any one person deserves, really. I behaved badly in some instances, did things that still cause me shame and regret. Things that I'm not sure I'll ever forgive myself for, even if other people have.

I struggled. I drank too much, and I smoked more. I barely passed some of my classes (though I did graduate on time. Barely.) I fought with family and friends. Some relationships were destroyed, others strengthened. I learned a lot about how I deal with stress and how I shouldn't deal with stress. I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder halfway through, and it took a while to figure that out.

A lot of the struggle is behind me, though it will also always be with me. I try to focus on the good memories in these stories, but the bad ones deserve they're place. They're a part of who I am, as much as the good times.

This collection will hopefully speak for itself by the end. But I wanted to put assurances out there first. I've shed the friends I wanted to shed and maintained the relationships that mattered most. I achieved a work-life balance that keeps me balanced. Now we can get down to the messy business of remembering. And writing.