Meg & Dia

Dia and I performed a few more times after that gig at The Electric Theater. With our practices becoming more and more rare and our enthusiasm tanking, I decided to pack a bag and try the “college” route.

 I placed a stack of neatly folded jeans into my suitcase with my father’s voice echoing from down the hallway, “You’re only young once. You ought to keep at it.” I shrugged off his advice and reached up for a few photos on my wall that I wanted to bring with me to my dorm. “You’re going to regret this. You really don’t need to go to college.” I glanced up from my packing. Really? What kind of father gives his child the advice NOT to go to college. I had to convince him over and over again that I needed an education to find a real job, a steady income. I needed stability, and my sister and my little dream and our gigs around town weren’t going to give that to me.

Of course, I didn’t want to leave Dia to fend for herself at home while I went off to college. I realize now, looking back how hurt she felt and abandoned at my leaving. I tried to play down the enormity of my decision, because although I would never admit it out loud, leaving Dia was one of the hardest parts about my “grown up” decision. I held back tears and succeeded in my goal of showing no emotion. Why I couldn’t have simply given her a huge hug, balled my eyes out, and asked her to beg me to stay, I’ll never know. 

I basically lived in a closet for a year, sharing half of the tiny space the University liked to call a “dorm room” with another really religious girl who frowned upon my cut-off jeans and late curfew. (I actually ended up becoming really great friends with her.) I did all the college “activities”. I attended some really lame parties, drank a beer on a rooftop in the middle of the night with strangers, fell in love with a tortured artist, and flunked Political Science…