Freshman Kaylee Cox finds her new normal

Cheerful guitar strumming rings through the air, and freshman Kaylee Cox gets pissed. It’s like this every morning. She grabs her phone and silences the alarm.

If this were high school, her mom would have come in and said softly, “Kaylee, time to get up.” Kaylee could have fallen back asleep if she wanted to. Her mom would have been back in a few minutes to turn on the light. But this isn’t high school.

Kaylee walks to her classes and falls into the buzz of activity, the grind of the day. She worries about getting into the business school and wonders where she and her friends will  go for dinner. This is the life she has created at IU, and she’s the adult here. Some days, though, on her way to class or back in her room in Teter Quad, she’ll look down at her phone and see another text from her mom.

“Hav a great day! Is it cold up there and rainy? Dress warm!”

A message that’s traveled two-and-a-half hours in seconds, the distance between her old life and her new one.

“Have a great day! study hard. Cant wait to see you!”

Kaylee pauses, takes a second in her busy life — her college life.

“Thanks!” she types to her mom. Send.

Kaylee and her mom have just begun a ride that will change their relationship forever. She’s ready to be on her own, but she’s still growing into the adult she’ll become.

It’s the beginning of a four year push-and-pull. There will be inevitable arguments and frantic phone calls asking for advice. Eventually, without either of them noticing, they’ll slip into a new normal. This is freshman year, and for Kaylee and her mom, it’s just  the beginning.

***

Kaylee was in her room on a Thursday night. She was alone watching “Jersey Shore,” and all her friends were studying for exams. It wasn’t just any Thursday, though.

It was Kaylee’s 19th birthday, her first birthday on her own.

A year ago, she would have come into the kitchen and found presents at her spot. If she had a soccer game, her mom, Tammy, would have been there with brownies for the whole team.

But that day didn’t have any of that. Her mom sent her brownies, but no one even sang to her.

It was weird being 19. Kaylee felt like she was still 15, like nothing had changed. There in her dorm room, Kaylee wasn’t sure she was ready to be an adult.

***

The basement was dark, hot and sweaty. It was the last day of September, and it was cold outside. The music bumped through the speakers, and a girl grinded with the boy behind her. Boys carried plastic cups filled with a mottled brown liquid that smelled faintly like grape.

Kaylee and her roommate stood off to the side. She and her friends went out a lot, but she wasn’t drinking that night.

Soon, they decided to leave. It wasn’t even 1 a.m., and it was much too early to admit defeat and go back to the dorms.

They started walking.

This was how it ended every weekend, them walking in a huge group, looking for a party.

They weren’t just worried about where to go, though. The threat of getting caught drinking underage was an ever-present fear.

“If you have a cup, throw it down,” someone said.

Kaylee was shivering in her sparkly tank top under a netted shirt.

“I’m basically not wearing a shirt,” she said.

She skipped across the street, bouncing and trying to warm up.

“Kaylee, what the hell are you on? You’re definitely going to get us caught,” someone in the group said.

Ten people were in the group now, a huge, roving freshmen mob looking for fun. For a while, they just stood at a corner under the streetlight, looking at a party down the street.

Next to them, a car drove by. The guy in the passenger seat leaned out. “I remember my first beer,” he screamed.

They knew they were being obvious.

“God, we are such freshmen,” someone said. “We are all such freshmen.”

The group walked through the yard, up to the door. Inside, they could see a crowded, dark kitchen.

“I don’t like this place,” Kaylee said. She thought it was sketchy.

“I wanna leave. I don’t have a clue what’s going on in there, and I don’t wanna find out.”

She and a few of the others gathered back in the street outside. Their friends wanted them to come back inside, but Kaylee was done for the night.

At the side of the house, a guy was bent over next to a car, puking. The group that stayed went to the backyard, standing under a house lamp next to a keg.

Then someone said it.

“Cops.”

They ran, the underbrush grabbing at their shoes, until they reached the next road over.

Kaylee was already back at Teter, warm in her room. In the morning, Kaylee wouldn’t have to lie to her mom about where she’d been. She had told her about the party before they had even gone out.

***

Kaylee doesn’t tell her mom everything, but she does give her glimpses of her life at IU.  

Once, Kaylee texted her mom after 1 a.m. because she was scared. The cops came to a party she was at, and even though she wasn’t drinking, Kaylee wanted to make sure she couldn’t get in trouble for just being there.

“Well, you probably shouldn’t put yourself in those situations,” Tammy said. “But ...”

Tammy remembers college. She went to the University of Evansville more than 30 years ago. Before Kaylee left in the summer, she talked to her about roommates, professors and what to expect. Tammy knows it’s not the same now as it was then, but she trusts Kaylee will make the right decisions. Still, she’ll send her marathon texts before the night begins.

“B careful! Leave with your friends,” she’ll type. “B safe hav fun and don’t come home alone. Wheres the party? Remember everything we’ve taught you.”

They’re little reminders from a mom far away, part of their dance of control.

Still, Kaylee thinks she knows better.

One weekend, Kaylee drove up to Terre Haute to visit her ex-boyfriend, Andrew, at Indiana State University. She didn’t think her mom would approve, and she was right.

A few days later, she heard from her mom. She had checked Kaylee’s debit card transactions.

“So what was your debit card doing in Terre Haute?” Tammy asked.

“How did you know?” Kaylee said.

“Your debit card doesn’t lie,” Tammy said. She wasn’t mad, really, but she did mind. Kaylee could have gotten in an accident, and Tammy wouldn’t have known where she was.

Tammy knows she can’t worry every second of the day. She trusts God and her daughter, and so with resignation and a prayer, she lets it float away. There’s nothing else she can do.

***

A couple months in, Kaylee was adjusting to her new normal.

Then, one day, she pulled a muscle in her back after working out. It hurt so badly in class the next day that she thought she would throw up. She ran out and sat on the stairs near her classroom in McNutt Quad. The first thing she did was call her mom.

“Just go to the Health Center,” Tammy said, helpless from so far away.

As hard as she was trying, she still couldn’t totally stand alone.

***

Winter break came quickly, and Kaylee got to go home. Her first semester in college was over, but now at home, she would have to answer to her mom.

She was a different person now, though, and she expected the rules to be different. She wasn’t in high school anymore.

Her mom knew it wouldn’t be the same, too.

The pressure of the worlds colliding — Kaylee in college and Kaylee the daughter — still gets to them sometimes.

During break, Kaylee would go out with friends, and her mom would still ask the mom questions.

“Who’s going to be there? Who’s driving? Are they a good driver?”

They don’t have it perfect, but they’re getting closer. Tammy lets Kaylee stay out later, knows she sets her own rules at school. She trusts she’s taught Kaylee well enough. Kaylee does her best, and sometimes, she’ll give a little, too.

“Thanks!” she’ll type, when her mom texts.

It’s just a simple response, but it’s an acknowledgment. Through the miles of airspace and between the lines, it’s the balance of adulthood, the new normal they’ve found and the bond they’ll share beyond freshman year.