College is crying, silently, on the plane, in the cab and up the elevator. You drop your bags at the door, smear your sopping face on your sleeve and fan away tears, mentally preparing – and failing – to appear happy. Or just, not sad. I should be excited to start sophomore year.

College is opening the door to see three girls perched on a doctor’s-office-turned-dorm-room couch, sloshing wine in coffee cups and shouting along wildly to “Family Feud.” They greet you with screeching, unbridled enthusiasm. I can’t help but smile.

College is the core challenge, which you and your roommates got off Pinterest and take turns DJing via Beyonce, Dashboard Confessional and the legend, DMX. Your abs work double time when you’re spitting fire. Planks are harder to hold when you’re shaking with laughter (because someone moved the laptop to reveal a Wheat Thin on the carpet). Was someone saving that? Maybe it’s time to vacuum.

College is remembering, intermittently, that you’re not in class to pass, and that your professor is less your teacher and more your potential future. How exactly did someone reach a place in life that elicits pairing patent clogs with shoulder pads? Doesn’t matter, I realize, because this woman is being paid to write and I am still nervous to approach sources on the street. College is scheduling naps. College is respecting your peers. College is just getting by.

College is a glorious, shameless, jungle-juice-and-Ke$ha-induced dance floor make-out, forever known afterward as the DFMO. Even better is the ambush of shit you get – or give – for it afterward. On Halloween, I pee on my own faux-fur cat tail.

College is soup Thursday. Stealing the science major’s lab goggles to combat raw onion fumes, I mooch meal swipes for Becky’s breakfast sandwiches, one of the few Northeastern standbys that lives up to its hype. College is the one roommate not on co-op baking the other two cupcakes, just before she leaves for spring break.

College is and forever will be “Lady Marmalade” karaoke, in the classical styling of “Moulin Rouge,” belted in a weaving Saab. Ladies, name your parts. Misdemeanor here.

College is co-op’s little sister, strutting around in too-big high heels. Co-op is realizing the phrase “straight razzed” and a smattering of DMX lyrics have become integral parts of your lexicon. Co-op is crying on the T because, after nine hours in a cube, an elderly Asian man has sat on your lap. My middle-aged boss is clearly uncomfortable when I sing “meet-ing time,” Semisonic-style, on the way to the conference room, but I do it anyway. Every week. Co-op is free mixers.

College is realizing you may have actually acquired enough friends to compose a legitimate wedding party. College is also remembering you sleep in what is essentially a toddler’s cot and postponing any marriage plans until further notice.

College is putting on paper what will inevitably make you cringe later. I never re-read my writing.

College is Newtown, Nemo, Marathon Monday. Anomalies that unite.

College is admitting, with an amused comfort, that you and your friends are just a motley band of Lost Boys. Motherless, hopeless, struggling, fumbling – little kids playing house in a big city.

Even still, Saturday mornings, sipping coffee and flipping pancakes, feels like family. Snow storms and Scrabble mirror a home. Ineffable relief when your roommate was covering Comm. Ave, not Copley, means you’re all each other’s got.

College is only half over.

 –Emily Huizenga can be reached at [email protected]