Don’t panic, everything’s not lost
As if the Summer of 2003 wasn’t traumatic enough . It’d been two months since Graduation Day at LICHS, I missed everyone. I was in the middle of my Basic Skills courses at John Jay that summer struggling to adapt to a new world. Even with plenty of warning, this was one change I didn’t want to happen.
It was ten years ago this week on the 21st, the day my sister left for college for the first time. My sister was the salutatorian of her high school even though she should’ve been valedictorian. She was accepted to Syracuse University. The harbingers to this day were ongoing. She was going out to buy everything she needed in the weeks that followed Graduation. Moments after the blackout came to an end the previous week, we were introduced to her roommate via phone call. The night before she left, my dad took us out to dinner at Sizzler when it was still in Rego Park.
The day had come, in the top five of the worst day ever. It was 6AM that Thursday and my dad and my sister were heading to Penn Station as they took the train up to Syracuse for orientation that weekend. I tried to hold back my emotions but it was impossible to do so as I hugged her before she walked out the door. That left my mom and myself both in tears as my dad’s car pulled away. It didn’t help that the Math & Writing exams were later that day. I tried to muster enough courage via listening to Coldplay’s “Don’t Panic” and “Everything’s Not Lost”, but it was to no avail. I failed both exams the second time and started Freshman year in both remedial English and Math classes. I didn’t take my sister leaving well, to the point that my mom strongly insisted that I join my cousins that Saturday as they were going to the Garden State Mall. The rest of the time between this and the first day of classes on 9/3 is obscured by the sadness of not having her around every day.
My sister being going for periods of time wasn’t new. As the case was every summer where she would be a counselor for her school’s Upward Bound program at Vassar. But I would see her later in the summer. I wasn’t prepared for having our interactions be only one phone call a week, and visits during Thanksgiving weekend which doubled as our birthday celebration, Christmas break and the Summer break. We’ve been in our own worlds everyday since day school ended but on occasion our paths cross. It still hurt not being able to say “good morning” to her, knowing that the room next to mine was empty.
I couldn’t have been happier to have her back home when she graduated in 2007. I missed having someone to talk to who isn’t nearly as critical about everything as my parents are. I don’t know how I survived the four years of back and forth. This period of my life reaffirmed how important my sister is to me. I live vicariously through her, to fill the self-inflicted void that all my other relationships have been reduced to. The wall of self isolation is still up ten years later, there’s signs of life on the other side.
