(Here’s another cross post. Our assignment for the Cochran family blog is to write about the first time we moved out so I thought I’d post a copy here as well).
I moved out for the first time about two weeks after I graduated from High school. I packed my bags and flew to Utah for school, leaving behind almost everyone I knew. I decided to write about my first year of college because it just blended right into my story about moving out.
My last Sunday at church was the day of my little brother Bryan’s baptism. My siblings and I all sang the primary song “When I am Baptized†and by the end of it we were all crying. It was also the day of Barbara’s mission farewell. I remember my mother spoke in church and told stories about how Barb had prepared for her mission. Many of the stories were comical stories from her childhood. She told about when Barb was really little and there was nothing in the fridge except frosting and carrots so Barb dipped the carrots in the frosting and ate them (showing resourcefulness, I think). I also remember that when she talked about me going off to college, she started to cry.
My whole family came to the airport to see us off and most of us cried. Back then you could go right up to the gate and wait until the person boarded the plane.
I arrived at my apartment late at night in Provo, Utah. I remember feeling a thrill of excitement as I lugged my suitcases up two flights of stairs to my apartment on the third floor. I was excited to be on my own for the first time and to be going to BYU. I lived in apartment #3 at Nelson Apartments (at the corner of 200 East and 300 North in Provo). We used to call it Nel-SLUM. We had the nicest apartment in the complex because a few years back there had been a fire in the apartment and when they fixed it up, they put in nicer kitchen cabinets and paint. The building had a tiny laundry room with maybe two coin operated washing machines and dryers.
My sister was leaving for her mission in a few months and she had arranged for me to move in with her and her roommates. I remember my roommates at Nelson were Sandy, Joyce , and Annette. I think Annette and Joyce moved in when Barb left for her mission. I remember that Sandy had a car, but I don’t think the rest of us did. I walked almost everywhere I went. I walked to school and to the grocery store. Smith’s was the closest grocery store and I mostly didn’t mind the walk, but it always seemed the longest when I bought milk. I remember my hands would hurt by the time I got home with my gallon of milk in one hand and the rest of my grocery bags in the other.
I got a job at BYU catering just before school started. It was the only job I applied for and I had applied for it because I had a job working for Heidelberg cafeteria while in high school and I had worked as a caterer a time or two through that job.
Barbara had registered me for all my classes. At that time registration was done by touch tone phone. She looked up what she thought was my major and picked out a good selection of freshman classes. She did a good job except that she signed me up for the elementary ed science class which meant I had to take two semesters of a physical science to complete the requirement instead of one.
My ward included our little apartment complex and a few blocks with houses. Nelson Apartments was made up of two buildings, one men’s and one women’s. The bottom floor apartments housed married couples and small families. It wasn’t the ideal place for my first year. Most of the students living this far off of campus where older. I remember the guys that we spent the most time with were all 27 (I was 18). Add to that the fact that my sister had lived in that ward for a little while and I immediately had my identity as Barb’s little sister and I felt like most people in the ward thought of me as a child and I felt like my dating opportunities in the ward were limited.
I remember being a little lonely at first. My first week there I met a boy with curly brown hair. I can’t remember his name. I think we had the door open with a fan in it and I was doing dishes in the kitchen (funny how I can remember those details). He stopped in and asked my name. I think he stayed and talked for awhile. I saw him several times over the next few days. I think my sister Barbara was upset one day when she came home and he had his arm around me as we were watching a movie at our apartment. That night she lectured me about men and about how I needed to be careful. I remember her citing a high divorce rate among young naive BYU students. It wasn’t long after that before I decided on my own that I wasn’t really interested in spending any more time with that boy.
I made friends with our next door neighbor, Kim. We’d sit outside and talk at night. She was one of our family home evening group leaders. I think she went on her mission after Summer semester.
I went to freshmen orientation soon after moving out there and met a red-headed boy named Sam. He called me up and asked me if I wanted to go out to Zuka Juice with him. I accepted and told my roommates we were going to Bazooka Joes (I obviously hadn’t heard him right). We started spending more and more time together. I was dating him in August when my family came out to see Barbara off on her mission. He was from Virginia. I remember one time he invited me over to his apartment after class for dinner. He had made lasagna. When I told a friend about it she said he must be really serious about me if he made lasagna because of all the work that went into making it. I remember going on walks with him on the little pathways around BYU campus. One time he told me that he thought I was so beautiful that he didn’t know why I wasn’t married yet. I laughed and told him I was a freshman, I’d only been away from home for a few months. I think he was starting to get really serious and I still hadn’t decided if I really liked him. I must have gone to some family event with him because I remember being alone in a suburban with his older sister and she told me that I needed to tell him how I felt about him (at that point I didn’t really know how I felt about him). I ended the relationship by telling him that I didn’t think I was ready for marriage yet. In my mind that was a lie because I did want to get married and I wasn’t opposed to getting married as a freshman, I had just decided that I didn’t want to marry him and I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.
I went with my home teacher to Brigham City for Thanksgiving that year and was excited to be able to go home for Christmas. When I walked in the door, Bryan was watching a Home Alone movie. He came over to me and felt my face as if not sure it was really me, then he gave me a big hug.
I think I ended up a little off topic. That was most of the first part of Freshman Year.
The lady who lives there now was very kind and talked to us at length about the changes they had made and apologized for the roses and other things that didn’t survive. It’s strange that she’s been there for ten years already because in my mind that house has always been my grandmother’s house and for some reason I had it in my head that she had just moved in.
