Maarya's Musings

I grew up in a house that was always bursting at the seams. Our family of six lived in a crowded four bedroom, and I shared a room with my youngest sister. Shut doors would burst open without warning, and the house always bustled (sometimes shrieked) with the sounds of playing children - or fighting children, it was rather ambiguous. In college I lived first in dorms, in a suite shared by six girls. Then I moved to a tiny apartment in the upstairs of a large home, and had best friends for roommates. The kitchen wasn't insulated against the Long Island winters and we had to dig our cars out every week, but we stayed warm in our rooms, huddled around a space heater with the type of camaraderie that only comes with shared misery. The next year I lived in a house with three strangers, and that is when I made the decision to move across the country for grad school. I found a small studio in a four story walk-up on the North Side of Chicago, where I would live alone for the first ...

In the summer of '13 I cut off all my hair. I entered Stony with a pixie cut and reservations of having chosen a safety over my dream school for the price tag. I moved into a dorm, a suite of 6 girls, for which I still have intense nostalgia. We decorated our walls in corny quotes and washi tape, got each other hyped to sit in a stranger's car for our first ever frat party, watched the series finale of How I Met Your Mother. We did all the things you and your freshmen roommates are supposed to do. At our first Homecoming game, someone laughed when I cheered alongside the crowd. I asked them why and they told me it was funny to see the quiet girl make a sound. My heart sank to my stomach when I heard those words. Here I was, in a new place trying to be a new person, and I was still somehow the quiet girl. They say that college is where you find yourself, but I thought I already knew who I was. I was so certain that I had become the person I promised my high school self I ...