Thunderstorm of Thoughts

The boom of thunder forced my eyes to snap open and my whole body was seized by the tremblance of my house. A scream was caught in my throat, and I was choking on it. The indigo haze of confusion melted into a foggy blue hue against the lavender walls we painted less than nine months ago when we moved into this house. My eyes focused on the mistaken patch on the white ceiling, and I willed my body to relax. My senses took over. My brother screaming obscenities at Splatoon downstairs. The gust of rain on the window panes. The rustling of the trees. I stretched, regaining control of my limbs, and peered at my phone. Three in the afternoon and three missed messages. I answered quickly and got up. My mother would be home in an hour for our trip to Cleveland for my college orientation.

College had never been on my mind, but after being forced to one too many college expos and schmoozed by a college recruiter, I applied to a single college and got accepted. The college was four hours away, just outside of Cleveland. While I had been to other states, the looming thought of leaving home was weighing on me like an elephant was asleep on my chest. I was a late bloomer in the sense of teenage experiences. I had gotten my license at seventeen but still hesitated to drive anywhere. I had never slept over at any friend's house that wasn't related to me or connected to someone who was related to me. I hadn't even had a job yet, nor even looked for one, despite writing several resumes in classes. The idea of jumping out of the fishbowl and into the Great Lake was suffocating me.

I was still shaking at the thought of leaving, even in the car with Cincinnati disappearing behind us. My mother was beside me, tapping an Erykah Badu song onto the steering wheel. Kings Island was fading in the distance, looking like a masterpiece of geometric pipe cleaners. Maybe I'd go for my last summer in the city before the college hijinks I had seen on TV would set in. Part of me didn't feel ready. Well, all of me didn't feel ready. My mother seemed to notice. I wasn't the first to go to college, far from it, but no one had good stories. College was just a painful rite of passage apparently.

The queasy feeling was taking over my brain when my mother turned the music down. She knew that I hadn't been sleeping, but this was long before my mental health had begun to be unpacked. At that time, I was just a lazy, spoiled teenager who spent too much time on her computer and not enough time being an adult. Yet, my sleep schedule was getting concerning, especially since last summer, I was so depressed I could only bring myself to sleep, watch TV, scroll on dating sites, and research the arbitrary on my laptop.

"Did you sleep at all?"

"Nah," I murmured. I was looking at my shorts, making sure the faint red marks were covered enough that no questions would be asked. "I fell asleep around seven."

"The nerves will go away. Plus, you liked it before. I'm sure orientation is going to be fun."

"Yeah."

"It won't be like my experience," she assured me.

My mother had gotten into an extremely difficult arts program only to realize that not only did she hate her whore roommates, every frat boy they brought to her dorm, and the program she was in, but that her ongoing struggle with epilepsy and constant exhaustion from her program had her crying nightly and contemplating dropping out like my father had. The only reason she finished at all was because of her surprise birthday gift, hearing my heartbeat at the gynecologist. We were close to Columbus now, and the knot in my stomach had reached monkey fist knot status.

"I just am worried. I only applied to one college. I like the program, and I'm excited, but it's new. What if it doesn't work out?"

"You can always quit," she said, reciting one of the family quotes. "I'd rather you quit while you're ahead than stick with something you hate. I don't want you to be stuck in a job you despise."

"I understand." I squeezed my feet around my bookbag and answered a text from my friend in Maryland. We had been roleplaying for a while, though it was nothing serious. I had never done anything serious. "I'm hoping it'll go well."

"Of course it will. And if not, it's not the end of the world."

I smiled for the first time in a while. A Taylor Swift song was quietly playing on the radio. "Thanks, Mother."

"Don't call me that," she grumbled playfully. "I'm not that old."