I’m sure she’ll love it there – Saratogian

Another moving day. The fourth time in two years.

She had been warned that life in the dormitory would be quite nomadic.

She had taken the administrative advice to heart: pack light. Be prepared, with less than a semester’s notice, to pack everything you own into a container no bigger than a shopping cart and wheel it across campus if necessary.

During her freshman year, she had moved rooms three times, from a triple in Boston to a hotel room in Greece; and for a few weeks that summer, to a skyscraper on campus. Her sophomore year, she had stayed put: living her best life in a fifth-floor studio with two roommates, their own kitchen, and a balcony (big enough for a flower box) overlooking campus.

She loved that place.

It wasn’t that she wasn’t excited about the next move: to an upper-class dormitory that would rival the three-bedroom apartments in any upper-class neighborhood. And when I looked at the photos she sent me on moving day, I noticed that the place had a modern feel, with walls full of windows and an open living space. The new apartment would undoubtedly be the best city apartment she would ever live in for the relatively “bargain” price of a college room and board.

But she didn’t seem to be in a hurry to pack up and move there. The day before her ID tag would stop working at one address and open up at the other, she hadn’t packed a single thing.

I imagined she would miss the old place. The high ceilings, hardwood floors, and polished woodwork. It was the place that sealed her as an adult. Not just because she had to clean a toilet by herself, but because she learned to cook on a gas stove and laughed late into the night at the dinners she and her roommates hosted.

The salad days evolved into soufflé evenings.

I could also understand other reasons for her hesitation.

She would be the first to arrive and would have to practice living alone for almost a month before she would have a whole group of new roommates.

Still, I offered to help her move her things from one street to another. I offered to put a lot of elbow grease into floors or windows or whatever dust had been overlooked by previous tenants.
I knew the terrain. I could help carry things up and down the stairs. I could take everything apart and put it back together as if I were fluent in the language of IKEA Directions.

I set my tone of voice to “unnaturally exuberant” and relayed the message: “Not only will I happily drive five hours through the rain and darkness to see your new place, I’ll also scrub the stalagmites out of your oven if need be.”

But she had refused.

She got all the help she needed from her fellow students.

That’s why I was surprised when my phone started lighting up with messages.

“How do you operate a dishwasher?”

“There are 235 people living in this building and guess how many washing machines are working? THREE! I’ve put in my first work order request… US!”

“WHY ARE THERE MOUSETRAPS HERE? EWWWW”

“And oh man…there’s a street light outside my bedroom window THAT. NEVER. TURNS OFF! I couldn’t sleep until 2am”

“Guess what time I woke up this morning? 5 a.m. Guess why? That garage door under my apartment is where they store the trash. And Thursday is trash day.”

“I hope it’s just on Thursday anyway. I don’t know, but a girl can dream.”

As she breathed, I smiled. It felt like I was with her in more than just my mind.

“I think I’m going to love it there.”

I knew it for sure.

Siobhan Connally is a writer and photographer living in the Hudson Valley. Her column about family life appears weekly in print and online.