There is nothing worse than an unspoken boundary that is violated. I imagine many of us as kids, especially young girls, have grown up believing that we didn’t have the right to our own privacy and our own space. Living in a small two-bedroom apartment with four other family members for a great majority of my life, I know I didn’t. It was quite the chore not communicating boundaries that were always there but didn’t quite have the language or courage to uncover them when doing so was like the equivalent of committing a sin to my parents.
I had a level of freedom I couldn’t find for years living in a strong, seemingly impenetrable bubble of domesticity. I had these rumbling thoughts deep inside of me thinking—why did this have to mean home? Why couldn’t I get outside of the bubble and share with others who weren’t even my biological family? These thoughts raised a lot more questions than answers. My naturally curious self while raised to be incessantly obedient to my family was also stubborn to be challenged and released from this containment. There indeed always was and still is a life outside of the family and of the traditional home.
I had believed that my parents (and extended family) were entitled to all the private details of my life just because they were my blood. That blood erased the possibility of personal choice. Once I was aware that I would become a college student and an adult, and didn’t have to share everything with my family, I was relieved. My college campus was like a home away from home. I could create my own schedule, choose my own classes, choose my hangout spot, and do almost whatever I wanted without my parents’ or teachers’ input.
There were many people I met in college that seemed to use this freedom away from home as eagerly as I wanted to. Though, I would say in riskier ways than I was willing to. Plenty just wanted to drink, smoke, and have lots of careless sex. It isn’t downright awful to engage in any of these short-term pleasures, as long as they are measured and consensual. But freedom in college to me meant an entirely different thing. It meant getting closer to Mother Nature. Enjoying my own company. Reveling in my own aliveness. It was like a spiritual awakening to see just how much of this world there was for me to experience.
Going to college made me closer to nature, closer to myself, and closer to everyone I have learned major lessons from—even those I have run physically and emotionally away from. It made me see how many more similarities we carry to each other than we do differences. That we are all just wandering souls, even my own family would argue against that using the argument that biological ties are unbreakable. Essentially, that biology keeps at least some of us away from wandering too far. Even though chosen families exist, but that’s another conversation for another time.
Even if my college wasn’t too far from home, I found it a necessary part of my life. For some, college may have given them nothing; but for those such as myself, it saved me. College revealed to me how my perfectionism was hurting me. How staying neatly within the lines draw by home life was holding me back. I didn’t have to dedicate my entire life to my family. I didn’t even have to absolutely love spending time with them.
My college campus—repping City College of New York, of course—gave me a quiet thinking place away from the aggressive debates at home. It gave me beautiful buildings I could stare at without feeling like an awkward tourist. It was almost like a mini-city—not too huge that I didn’t feel like an ant and intimate enough to actually enjoy the nature around me and feel like a part of it too. Even riding the college shuttle bus almost every day to and from the train station made me feel like I owned the city for a couple of minutes. I was indeed a natural wanderer.
I admit that I have taken Mother Nature for granted plenty of times, and college put Her front and center so I wouldn’t ignore Her. After reading that academic greenspace provides many positives for college students such as more social interaction, sharper focus, improved moods, and improved cognitive performance, I thought about how academic greenspace made me feel more aligned with the world. I hadn’t felt more at ease and more myself than at my college campus. I thank Her for that.
To conclude, I’d like to reference an Afro-Latinx Literature course I took in the Fall of 2022, which was taught by Bronx-born poet Mariposa at City College. What was so significant about this course was that my professor invited multiple writers and activists to speak to our class—many having been involved in the Nuyorican Movement and The Young Lords Party in the 60s and 70s in New York City. I remember in one of our earlier classes being taken to Remembrance Rock on our campus where there lay a plaque commemorating the Black and Puerto Rican students who protested for racial diversity and tuition-free college at City in 1969. Our class sat on the grass underneath the trees as we listened to our professor speak with peace. It was in this moment that I realized that learning should always be in nature and always reflect it.
By Daeli Vargas
Daeli is a recent graduate from the City College of New York with a BA in English and a publishing certificate. She is from the Bronx and is very passionate about all things literary. She hopes one day to publish many books of her own and share her passions worldwide.
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