Home for a day

After the sheer exhaustion of completing my final run of midterms and papers, I should have been absolutely ecstatic to return home for Thanksgiving break. But the thought of exchanging pleasantries and maintaining false pretenses filled me with a sense of quiet dread. I couldn’t help but think after the millionth rendition of “How’s college going? It’s great! Thanks for asking,” that all I wanted to do was run away from everything.

At Duke, we talk a lot about the phenomenon of effortless perfection and the struggle of showcasing our vulnerabilities. But here I was, five hundred miles away from school and still unable to tear down the walls of superficiality that I had built for myself. Why couldn’t I turn it off and be honest even to my closest family and friends? Perhaps it stemmed from this profound sense of failure I felt—that I had gone to such a great university like Duke and been offered so many incredible opportunities in life and still wasn’t having the time of my life.

Like so many people, I had imagined college to be a picture perfect world where I would meet wonderful people, go to parties and have the adventures of a lifetime. And I have. But at the same time, I couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed by the superficiality that pervaded most of my conversations. I kept thinking, “Is this it?” I hated the fact that people felt the need to play the game of who is doing what with the least amount of work; it colored all my interactions with people and left me super disappointed in Duke.

But at home, talking to family and friends, I was still reluctant to let go of selling an image of a perfect Duke and a perfect me. On campus, we talk a lot about the importance of showcasing our vulnerabilities to others, of being honest of what we are feeling, but I never really realized how hard that is. Because to truly admit you are feeling unhappy to people means admitting that all those perfect Instagram and Facebook photos that you have constructed are somewhat of a lie, that contrary to what it may seem, feelings of doubt and self-esteem still plague you once you are in college. So I felt like a failure because I thought that perhaps the problem was me, that I was the only one who felt like college wasn’t the most fun experience of their life.

At this point, bottling up my feelings and presenting a strong face to the world has become such an automatic response that I don’t even know if it’s possible for me to stop. Duke has conditioned me to be so okay with pretending to be fine that I have long stopped fighting the culture of effortless perfection. But recently I have been thinking a lot about what it means to be happy. And at this present moment, I think I am somewhere in between, caught amid thoughts that are weighing me down and a desire to present to the world that I am happy—that I love my life. I am slowly coming to the realization that I am unhappiest when I need to maintain a façade of perfection and constant happiness.

I’m slowly coming to terms with the fact that maybe college won’t be the best four years of my life. That maybe it is okay to leave Duke and remember it in all its unabashed glory, that accepting the fact that college is a combination of both good and bad moments is me learning to be honest with myself and growing up. So here’s to those nights I felt alone, was scared, cried on my own and truly felt vulnerable—because they taught me to grow and were all just as much a part as my college experience as my happier moments were too.

So the next time I go home, I’ll tell you the truth. “College is great! But it’s also hard and sometimes I struggle with feeling lonely and like I am not sure what I am doing with my life. But I wouldn’t trade it for any other experience.”

Gloria Zhang is a Trinity junior. This column is the final installment in a semester-long series of biweekly Thursday columns written by members of Peer for You. Message a peer responder anytime and receive a response within 24 hours.