A trip down memory lane

Normally, my blogs are about the recent past. But today I'd like to talk about the not-so-recent past.

Ten years ago this weekend, I moved my stuff into Salem College. More correctly, several cheerful and helpful orientation leaders moved my stuff in, and all I carried was my purse. I remember about 100 things about that day, a day that would literally change my life. Two months ago, I didn't get nostalgic about the fact that I'd graduated high school ten years ago. I feel like what really made me who and where I am today started ten years ago this weekend.

I remember Jen Pounders, carrying her purple cinder blocks with the fish painted on them. I knew instantly that was someone I would be friends with.  I remember Monique Farrell and the rest of the seniors, looking impossibly grown up and thinking there's no way I'd look like them in four years. I remember meeting my roommate for the first time, and seeing Kelly Delaney bounce from person to person, introducing herself. I remember the first look at my new dorm room and wondering how I could share a room so small. I remember meeting my "hall advisor"(now known as RA's) Piper Williams and feeling instantly comfortable. I remember meeting Shirley Southerland and thinking wow, this old lady does not know what she's gotten herself into with all these wild girls.

I remember standing on Clewell patio with Susan Jacobs, the one person I knew on that campus other than a girl that I went to high school with. We stood and talked, and met a new friend, Courtney Barron. Courtney was pissed that her mom made her wear a skirt, and after that day I only ever saw her in Abercrombie running pants and a ponytail. Susan still had her long, multicolored hair and years later I would find out that the sight of us terrified Heidi Schneble. I remember meeting Nan Tilley, the sweetest and most wonderful lady that would guide us through our first year. I remember being in awe of the amazingness that was Staci Lewis, a feeling that I would get for the next two years every time I saw her.

It seems impossible that this happened ten years ago, because I could swear it happened yesterday. I knew instantly that to be a Gramley girl was going to be something special. I had no way of knowing that, even with all the people I'd met, I hadn't yet met Liz Smith and Katie Burge, and how important that would be. I didn't know Lizard, but I heard she won a dance contest in her first 24 hours on campus. My roommate and I didn't work out but seven years later, we reconnected and became friends again. Girls came and went, for a semester or a year. Eventually we all moved away from Gramley (some of us after a second year) and one day we were all seniors, wearing caps and gowns and saying goodbye to our dorm rooms for the last time. But it all started ten years ago this weekend, and I can't imagine where I'd be today if a single thing were different that Saturday morning.

"And sing we of Salem ever,
As proudly her name we bear..."