Student Blog: Back to Being 3,098.6 Miles Away

Throughout my life, going back to school has always been an exciting prospect. I was always and continue to be a lover of school, meaning that throughout my pre-college school time, everything, down to the exact pencils I would use on the first day of school, was chosen at least a week in advance. For 5th-grade Natalie, the debate between mechanical and graphite pencils was truly life or death. While I no longer agonize over my pencil choices (I am a mechanical pencil girl all the way), a similar level of thinking goes into my back-to-school decisions, but this time it involves a 3,098.6-mile journey.

​ When I decided to move across the country for college and study theater, I didn’t think it would be a big change. My parents were just a phone call away, theater seemed the same no matter the coast, and I figured Boston couldn’t be that different from San Francisco, right?

Any person who has made a coast-changing move knows that this thought process is far from true because everything changed, both in exciting and difficult ways.

My parents are a phone call away, but the months will fluctuate so much that some weeks that phone call away will feel like a blessing, and sometimes, a curse. There is nothing better than landing that role in your dream club’s production of 'fill in the blank' and calling your parents to jump excitedly around your shoebox of a dorm room and celebrate. On the flip side, there is nothing worse than missing a call followed by the dreaded, 'I haven’t heard from you in a bit and I’m hurt…' message during tech week, which miraculously overlapped with your three midterms because the college overlords love to test your sanity. The overwhelming guilt follows. You know you should have called them when you had that free time yesterday instead of scrolling. Living so far from your parents can be both exciting and lonely. In preparation to go back to school, I flip between these two emotional states at least once a day.

Theater is not the same on the West Coast as it is on the East Coast. I’m sure any seasoned actor could have told me this if I had asked, but I came in with the conviction that even if my academic and social experiences were new and terrifying, that theater would be a walk in the park. Wow, was I wrong. This is not to say that I was completely drowning and feeling in the dark when I arrived in Boston, but there was more adjustment needed than I thought. This didn’t change when I came back for my second year, leading me to have to learn to give myself grace and time to flounder a little before I could find my footing. I can’t say that I have found a solid footing, even a week out from tech week. Yet, moving so far from my artistic safe place showed me the value of the theatrical unknown, and now every year, I am learning that back to school also means back to theater, as it is unique to Boston.

​The biggest ‘back to school’ change is the cities themselves. I have lived in San Francisco my whole life, so I knew that Boston would be a change; I just didn’t know how much. There is the obvious change in temperature and seasons (contrary to popular belief, a Californian can, in fact, thrive in the Boston freeze if she puts her mind to it), but it was more the shift in lifestyles. I have always lived in a world of lows of 45°F and highs of 95°F, something reflected in the demeanors of those around me. Boston has a hardened feel at first look, so when I first moved, I believed that everyone around me was just a little angry or annoyed all the time. I learned quickly that I couldn’t be more wrong and that just underneath that 10°F hardened exterior, intelligence and kindness exude if you just open yourself first. This plays a big part in my back-to-school preparation because the Boston atmosphere forces me to go even further out of my social comfort zone.

All in all, I am still that pencil debating kid, just in bigger ways. My back-to-school prep and journey looks a little different than that of my friends who drive from just 30 minutes outside Boston or New Jersey, but I wouldn’t change it for the world. Give me the city, season changes, and theatrical floundering any day, I’m ready—with frequent calls to my parents, of course (sorry mom and dad)—for the rollercoaster.