For those of us who believe we thrive at Lehigh in a
full-functioning manner, going home for breaks can be the most depressing time
in our lives. This is because we are faced with the cold, dead truth that it
will take a miracle(s) to help us thrive after
Lehigh in the real world. It’s always the same devastating realization when
I’m packing my bags to head back: The things I think are normal here at Lehigh are
in actuality very disturbing to both my home friends and family.
We all go home for breaks with a healthy,
determined plan to “recover.” But as Lehigh students, our alcohol and drug
dependencies only allow the process of “recovery,” over breaks to become nothing
but a vague, transcendental idea we once had one time a while ago once. The
first night at home is always pretty low-key, because it’s not until after you sleep
for 19 hours straight and wake up the next day at 5:00 pm that your parents
really begin to get a grasp of just how much damage you’ve done to your body
before leaving school. “Wow I slept in so late! I had so many tests this past week
I guess I just got worn-out!” (Translation:
“I made it my primary mission to leave school with half the kidney and liver
tissue I started out with.”) One night of comatose sleep is just enough to
get you back on your A-game. At this point, you would do anything to escape
your parent’s judgmental and concerned glares. This is where seeing the homies
comes into play.
You sit at home and painstakingly
await the inevitable text; “Jimmy’s throwing down tonight!” which actually
means that around 10 kids from your high school are going to stand in Jimmy’s newly
carpeted basement and awkwardly converse. Overwhelmed with premature excitement
about destroying the past 24 hours of sobriety, you grab some 30 racks of natty
or PBR and a couple handles of the cheapest, foulest vodka they sell in the
area. When you arrive to the “party,” the disappointment sets in. “Come on guys!
We haven’t been together in ages. Let’s rage!” (Translation: “I just realized that I am the only person who bought
this much alcohol with the pure intention of blacking out and throwing up in
the sink, so now I’m embarrassed.”)
You start drinking heavily because”¦
what the fuck else are you going to do? By the end of the night, you are
unrecognizable to your friends. They are absolutely appalled by the stories and
amount of alcohol/drugs you are able to consume in a four-hour time span, and
visiting Lehigh sounds like the scariest, most dangerous thing they could ever
do. You find yourself saying things like, “Have you ever seen two grown police
officers beat a kid senseless in the middle of a crowded street like couple of
coked-out apes? I have!” or, “By noon we were so blacked out we had to flag down
a townie and bribe him to drive us to tailgates by offering him our leftover
drugs!”
Nights like these persist throughout
the break. As the confidence you once had in your abilities to communicate with
GDIs starts to plummet, you can’t wait to get back to school where verbally
abusing strangers walking on the street is normal. Of course, there are always
those lucky people who go home to find that they indeed have a few, non-GDI
homies that both appreciate and partake in similar lifestyle choices. Hold onto
these special homies, for they are the key to establishing concrete plans of comfortably engaging in filthy, demeaning activities on all future
breaks. This way, you don’t have to start researching how the average human showers without holding a beer in their hand until graduation!
