My undergraduate experience at one of the best universities in the state of Georgia – was nothing less than miserable. Georgia don’t be mad at me. I wasn’t equipped to deal with you [all] at the time.
I hated it. I felt so out of place.
I had never been surrounded by so much privilege in my life! That culture was not mine and that made it very stressful on me.
Why they even have to accept me? ☹️ If they didn’t, then Mommy wouldn’t have made me come here in the first place.
It was sort of like I was enrolled at the university but was only as a spectator of the college life. I couldn’t help it. We were broke in real life. So I spent most of my free hours in a restaurant about 40 minutes away from the school. I loved that place though so it was ok. That was my family.
Here, I spewed out the weekly specials to some hungry (mostly) rich white folk, memorized their orders when they placed them and made sure their sweet tea was never empty. Cus if them folks tea get too low, they get to shakin’ them glasses at ya and hun-ny, THAT shit makes me feel some type of way!
But if I did it right, in return they gave me enough money to cover my bills and sometimes a little extra if they got really drunk. 🤑
I repeated this on shifts of doubles on the weekends and even worked some nights during the week. This made me exhausted when the “Black People Meetings” came around – so I was left out. I couldn’t go to the big football games on Saturdays because I was, instead, in the weeds at the restaurant because of the football games. So I got left out.
By my junior year of school, I was completely over it. I didn’t have a real connection to the campus and the few friends I did have knew what the deal was. Get me the fuck off of this boujee ass campus!
I needed something more familiar. Like the smell of Newports or some loud reggae music played at inappropriate hours of the night. I needed the scent of Budweiser to dance in my nostrils again. I was homesick but not enough to literally go back home. Not to that set-up.
Tip: Recognize the unhealthy triggers in your life and deal with them. Apparently, if you don’t it can lead to some disastrous shit.
So I moved off campus … into the hood. They had cigarettes, boxed Chevys AND the weed man?!??! Bet. We in there.
I was living my best life, ya heard me?! I wasn’t uncomfortable anymore. I could be as free as I wanted to be. When I say “free”, I really mean: I could have however much male company I wanted over at whatever time I wanted them over type thing. No curfew. Nothing.
I just needed to get Mommy this degree so she would be happy and leave me the hell alone. Then, I could leave this whole entire place and never look back.
It is somewhere in and around this time out in the land of the free that I contracted the virus.
What if I had gone to a school that I actually liked? I wouldn’t even have been in this damn city. What if I had gone to an HBCU? I probably would have felt more welcomed and wouldn’t have left campus. What if? What if?
Yea right. Like me going somewhere else would have stopped me from having unprotected sex.
Not at all. But if I was around more people like me, then they would have understood what I was going through. They probably would have accepted me.
And that is all I wanted. That’s all I needed.
What not to do: DO NOT wait on someone else to love you before you love yourself. You’ll be dead first.
+ Ci Ci +
I will go first. 