College is the ultimate escape. It seems like no matter who you are; bibliophile, transvestite, teenage mom; college is freedom. College is instant friends and new experiences, a new you. It seems like everybody is running from themselves when they ship off to some other state, friends taking off like birds in migration. Maybe part of it is the anonymity. The more people there are, the less likely you are to stand out, the less you feel like a freak. Nobody notices you.

Maybe that’s why I worry, watching them leave. Like they’ll lose themselves at some state college with twenty thousand students or turn into frat kid look-alikes. Maybe they’ll lose their individuality or some part of themselves because there’s noone to keep them accountable for being unique, they wanted so bad to fit in and now they can. Maybe they’ll just lose it flat out, come back all disillusioned and sick.

Maybe I should stay at home, when it comes my time. Go to the U right here, live in my parents’ basement the first year. If I’m going to be myself, why not here, where my family is? I’ve seen it work well enough, and it’s the brothers and sisters that stay in the home town that get so much money and out-to-dinners and gifts, just because the folks remember them . You start to fade to the back of their minds if you leave.

Maybe that’s why I don’t plan to go to college at all. Or maybe it’s because I’m chronically unmotivated, struggling in math, and can’t keep track of all the information I’m supposed to remember or that I just can’t sit still very long. I can go to a trade school, or just not go to school, live on the beach and play my guitar. All I know is that when I go a thousand miles away, it’s not just to get away from them, or myself. It’s to follow the footsteps of a million friends.