Fall, 1981

As excited as I was for Williston to jump-start my life and make everything better, that first year had been a mixed bag. Not much had gone to plan; in fact precious little had. Academically, things were all right: I was studying more than I ever had (which had never been much) and making good grades, except in science and math, two subjects I would continue to suck at until graduation.

But I hadn’t managed to make more than a handful of friends. I didn’t really have a clique, and it was cliquey there. I was so scared and awkward around boys that the ones who paid attention to me when I first showed up on campus drifted away pretty quickly. If the impression was that I was uptight, it was probably correct: I was 17 and hadn’t gone past second base.

Still, when anyone anyone in Houston asked that summer after my first year, I would insist that boarding school was a roaring success, the best choice I’d ever made. Giving up and returning to my old high school wasn’t an option as far as I was concerned—I had to figure out a way to make that place work better for me.

So all that summer, bored and lonely in Houston, I devised a new vision of myself for myself. I kept a journal and—when I wasn’t copying Joni Mitchell lyrics into it—would try to write poetry of my own. I had already abandoned the seriously preppy clothes I brought to school my first year: the Kelly green trousers, the grosgrain-trimmed Talbots cardigan, the silly whale belt. Now I reimagined myself as one of Williston’s hippie girls (or Flower Children, as they were known on campus) and my wardrobe would consist of items like long, gauzy tiered skirts, Indian block-print T-shirts, those Chinese slipper flats everyone wore that looked like they belonged on dolls.

In reality, not all of the hippie kids were hippies at all: they may have dressed that way, and stank of clove cigarettes, but—when I eventually got to know some of them—I found they were actually just the more artistic, creative kids on campus, not especially obsessed with the `60s and Woodstock at all, and often more inclined to listen to Echo and the Bunnymen than the Grateful Dead.

Though the hippie kids intimidated me, I had a hunch they’d be nicer and more accepting than the girls in my first year dorm. In the absence of parents, with only overburdened dorm masters to keep us in check, kids could get really mean to each other, and I got picked on a bit. This would not stand, I decided.