what it takes

I've been thinking a lot about college recently. (Odd because I'm in college right?) Anyway, I've been thinking a lot about where I've come from and where I'm going. I'm looking back on what I've done in my time here and what my plans are for the future.

I'm from Oakdale, Pennsylvania. A place you've never heard of unless you're from there. Right now I'm in the Bronx, New York. Where I'm from most people think of the Bronx as impoverished and crime ridden and in many senses they wouldn't be far off. I go to school with kids from all over the world...no literally there are kids from Colombia, Asia, Russia, and Ghana. The majority are from the northeast though. I'm including New York state in that classification. Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York seem to dominate a majority of the population. We have middle class, upper-middle, and wealthy. There are plenty of kids like me somewhere here, I just haven't found many. Most kids' schooling is different than mine as well. If it isn't a prep school it's a public high school that breeds Ivy League students. (That's where Kaitlin is from.) Steve and Peter are prep school guys.

I sometimes tell myself that I'm one of the few who "made it out". I can count about 10-15 kids in my graduating class who "made it out". West Allegheny doesn't send kids to Ivy schools, it just doesn't happen that way. Or not that often at least. We breed mostly state school and local private school students. Somehow I made it here. Call it had smarts if you must. It was probably just persistence and a drive from somewhere deep down.

What it took was me telling myself I could get out. It took the thought of escaping.

Now that I've escaped I can say that I made it. That's the thing though, sometimes you make it so far and you realize that where you actually belonged was the very place you tried escaping from.

I won't tell you I don't belong here. I do. Academics wise I can compete and as far as personalities go, well I think of myself as likable enough and I think the six friends I've made here would say the same.

Maybe that doesn't sound like much to you. "Six friends".

To me it's a lot more than six names and faces. It's six new people that walked into my life and added a new dynamic to it. Those six are six people with six very different stories. Six stories that have made them who they are and somehow landed them here at Fordham with me. I'm lucky to have found these people. Each of the six has something different to offer. Each of the six has flaws and each of the six has something to laugh about.

You see for the longest time I thought I couldn't make it here.

I realized that what it takes to make it in college is one thing. It takes friends.

I guess I always took my six best friends at home for granted. They were always just a phone call away.

I've made six new friends here. Not to replace the ones I have at home, but to add to. I have six new stories to tell and in 8 days when I leave I'll have six people to wonder about.

I'll have six new people to miss everyday.

I'll miss them and I'll wonder about them and I hope that they'll come visit me. Whether it's at Pitt or in Oakdale, PA. The place you'll never hear about until you're in it.

I grew up in Oakdale and moved to the Bronx.

If you've read this blog from the start then you have seen me grow.

That's all this really is.

A journal for me to grow in.

NP: If It Means A Lot To You- A Day To Remember