my college experience – freshman year

four years spent at the University of North Texas that set the trajectory for the rest of my life (jk, no matter what college I went to I think I still would have ended up doing taxes, just with a lot less green shirts)

I started my freshman year in August 2015 (god, how is this already 11 years ago?!) and spent the first few weeks racking up memories and blisters on my feet (did you know you have to actually WALK everywhere on a college campus??? my step counter was topping 15k steps every day lol)

During orientation (called First Flight Week because our mascot is an eagle, get it? ha! ha! so funny! what genius comedian coined that?) my class did a cool photo of our school’s initials

I honestly don’t remember where I stood and apparently I had two assigned places (I think I got a green shirt, so maybe I was in the green N?)

and yes, I did get my dad the best UNT mug ever for Christmas one year…

ANYWAYS I had been planning the perfect dorm room, down to the exact throw pillows, mug placement, and baskets. this was right after I moved in (I think I sent this photos to friends/family to show them how ~perfect~ my dorm was)

eventually I moved the tapestry to cover the mess and doom piles I created under my bed and put up meticulously planned art (framed with the cheapest Ikea frames I could buy on my college student budget) –

back in the late ages (aka 2015), Snapchat was the primary mode of communication among college students. Snapchat had just started coming out with custom filters/banners specific to the location you were at, so there were a few special UNT-themed ones

I didn’t have my car my first year at college so I spent most weekends up at school (the first time I fell into a bad depression was my freshman year so that checks out lol) I would occasionally video chat with the cats (and Daisy, rip) back home

in true Megan fashion, I completely forgot I covered my closet door with wallpaper and then would decorate it for the holidays (which then I always turned into jokes any second I could, because I am me)

oh thank god, I took better photos of my diy dorm closet wallpaper job (I even did the pole that hangers hang on lmao) and everything was nice and organized and had a spot of course –

CHRIST. I forgot that for Christmas, I wallpapered our entire dorm door with christmas paper and a giant bow to make it look like a present LMAO (I would 10000000% do this again if I ever find the energy)

I spent a few weeks at home for Christmas break and at some point I had taken my car up to Denton and while driving home on 35E, I hit a bottle that exploded my car tire (while my friend was in the car with me) (one of multiple times I’ve had near-death experiences while driving at high speeds on the highway but being completely unscathed… I am not saying guardian angels are/aren’t real… but I’m also not saying they aren’t/are…)

ANYWAYS THEN a couple of weeks later I had a late night run to Whataburger (as one does) and my entire axle of my front wheels snapped and I had to call my parents (dad) to come help me at like 1am lol (thanks dad)

I spent the rest of my winter break doing one of my favorite things ever – playing video games (grand theft auto 5) and listening to oldies

I’M CRACKING UP, I can’t not share this because this is a very me thing but when I got back to my dorm in mid-January, the building smelled weird and I found a screenshot of a google search I made that night

and then a few days later, everyone got this notice posted on our doors LMAO (mind you, this was back when I still thought weed was the devil’s lettuce and I thought it was this huge scandal)

my dorm had a laundry room on my floor so I was able to do laundry without doing much walking and sometimes I would sit my ass on that dirty, gross, nasty floor and watch my clothes wash/dry lol

apparently I’ve always been creative, I found a collage I did in Snapchat using my shitty Android emojis to make art of my friend’s face, please enjoy a snippet

spring 2016 dorm room decor update

apparently at some point I did a project that involved my pets? 0 memory of that lol

during my spring semester I fell into a really bad depression and honestly don’t have that many photos or memories worth rehashing (and then the rest all involve people I’m not just going to post pics of on the internet because that’s not cool)

ANYWAYS I had to scroll through a lot of photos of people and happy memories that hurt me to even be reminded of. people I no longer speak to for one reason or another (I genuinely have yet to figure out just exactly what happened/what I did that eroded all of that, some things I may never know and that’s okay). there’s a lot of people I want to reach out to and reconnect, people that have such lasting impacts on my life. I don’t want to open that can of worms just yet (I still can’t even reach out to people I’ve always been close with, it’s like my brain is broken but I will fix it)

I might have had friends, I might have been doing well in school, but I was hurting. I could never quite pinpoint the feelings I was feeling, or where/what they were coming from and I still can’t really, medically this is called alexithymia and is very common in autistic people like myself lol). I am also an expert at ignoring and/or numbing myself from the few bad feelings I DO feel (because when I feel feelings, I feel them VERY strongly – it’s like my feelings have two settings, 0% or 100%, there’s no in between). On the surface level I looked really outgoing and successful (and I was) but I held myself to such high standards and continually felt like a failure.

From what I can (vaguely) remember, I ended the school year on awkward not-speaking terms with my roommate (when previously we had hung out and gone to church and community service events together). when I am hurting, I tend to just shut down and try to make myself invisible to the world and everybody (including myself) so I’m not a bother to anybody. wouldn’t be the first and wouldn’t be the last time I’ve ever done that. I just didn’t/don’t want to be a burden on anybody.