“Are you sure this is it?”
My dad pulled the car down Keohane Fire Lane. We were driving around the night before I was supposed to move in to get a look at the campus where I would be spending my next four years.
“Pretty sure. They said it was the biggest dorm for freshmen,” I said. I thought I was next to Gilbert-Addoms. At that point, I didn’t even know Duke University had a freshman campus.
The only time I had ever visited Duke was in fourth grade. My sister was looking at colleges and to be honest, I remember very little about Duke other than a charismatic admissions officer. In fact, I remember more about UNC-Chapel Hill’s college tour. But when I got the call that there would be a spot for me in the fall, I jumped.
This is not to say it was easy. In fact, I often struggle to make decisions. The best part of any journey to me is the start. In the beginning, the path is full of possibilities, and all of those options are fully realizable. With each step, we begin to carve out our way, and we make choices that render some of those possibilities impossible. Before we began our time in college, the four years held infinite potential, which made starting school so hard.
The night before I moved in, I wrote to my sister, terrified beyond belief that I wouldn’t make friends, or that I had somehow already made a decision that would limit my options for the next four years. What had I done signing the next four years of my life away to an institution I’d barely seen? I was paralyzed that every choice had in it the potential to alter my life-course in an unexpected way. I wanted so desperately to stay in that summer state of mind, when my time was spent imagining that anything and everything could happen.
But there’s a problem to the attraction toward that state of wonder I so wished to occupy—none of these wildest dreams would come true if I was afraid to take the first step. Of course some of the possibilities are wonderful and some are terrible, but one musttake the leap anyway. No matter how scary it looks, it will be worth it.
I came to Duke without the faintest idea of how my time would be. I saw an opportunity and I jumped, head first, and without a plan. The key was in knowing how to fall. I had to set aside my decision paralysis and continue to dive into new situations and trust that I would figure it out along the way.
My sophomore year, my roommate and I had the chance to go to Eno for the afternoon. Laura told me beforehand that I would have to jump off a high ledge to get into the quarry, and that meant conquering my crippling fear of heights. I was terrified. Had I looked around much longer I would have noticed that not everyone was jumping, but rather, walking down the hill. I didn’t look. I stood a few feet from the top of the ledge, closed my eyes, and took off running to jump into the water. Looking up at Laura slowly making her way down to me, I started laughing at my own lack of self-awareness.
“Why did you make me do that?” I asked.
“Sometimes you just have to jump.” She said.
The track hasn’t always been easy. I didn’t fall into Duke and magically have a perfect college career. I made my own magical college career by making the most of every second. At times, I have loved Duke. At times, I have loathed Duke. I have protested Duke, and I have promoted Duke. Someone pointed out to me once that our alumni seem not to wear the rose-colored glasses that alumni of other schools donned as they spoke upon their heydays. We view our time at Duke with an eye that some see as critical, but in truth, is simply thoughtfully reflective. I know that my time at Duke was not without flaw, but it was an experience that helped shape me into a person I love to be.
My junior year, I was desperate to study abroad but lazy enough to minimize the amount of time I spent applying. I finished two applications—one to Barcelona, a city I knew well and one where I would have friends as well, and one to Rome, a city I knew nothing about and where I would be staying with complete strangers and no knowledge of the language. Of course it would have been easy to go with the known entity. To some it would be a no-brainer.
Fast-forward to fall break at 4 a.m., and I’m wedged in a van with six other girls on our way to the Rome Fiumicino airport. We’re about to embark on a trek of three cities over nine days with just our backpacks and train schedules. The familiar fear begins to creep over me. What was I doing taking a vacation this long with these girls who I barely knew?
Just then, the song “Geronimo,” by Shepherd came on—the trashiest euro-pop song ever to bleed through car speakers.
“We can MAKE THIS LEAP.”
All of my best experiences at Duke came when I jumped without looking. I dove into The Chronicle without any prior writing experience. I became editing director of Duke Student Broadcasting less than two years after I learned what FinalCutProX was. I leapt out of windows, I danced until dawn, I took classes that challenged me.
“SAY GERONIMO.”
It’s not about making the best choices, it’s about making the best of where our choices take us. Take the leap. And enjoy the fall.
Patricia Spears is a Trinity senior. She wrote her first piece for the Chronicle blog—500 words on the different grasses in the Duke Gardens. She would like to thank her parents for sending spelling edits on already published pieces; her sister and brother for encouraging her to write for The Weekly Volcano Press; Carleigh and Emma for the late-night beach vacations and Barefoot-fueled conversations; Claire for being the most wonderful Rory Gilmore a big could ask for; and Fresca, for fueling so many late nights in the office.
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