To the Friends I've Made at UW-Madison

Written by Meg RuoccoPhotography by Noah Laroia-Nguyen When I first came to Wisconsin, I felt as if I pressed a reset button. I spent the previous year, my freshman year, at the University of Iowa. Through no fault of its own, it was a school where I never felt like I belonged. I lived in one of the Worst Dorms in America according to the New York Times, and spent most of that year hiding from my sorority sisters in the second-floor café of a bookstore. Walking down the streets, I would read quotes etched into the sidewalk from famous writers who’d spent their time at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and told myself that the undergraduate program would, at some point, start to feel like the prestigious graduate program I’d heard so much about… right? I felt out of place and unhappy and, as a result, became a caricature of myself. I was walking chaos—as I dissociated more with my reality, I manically roamed about campus in a fruitless attempt to find some sort of real happiness. I made a couple friends along the way—literally, I made two friends the whole time I was there—but even interacting with them felt like an act. They hadn’t seen the Meg that spent nights in her dorm room crying quietly to herself so as to not wake her roommate. They’d only seen the Meg who made jokes in class or danced down the street in her desperation to stumble upon some sort of authentic joy. And I did that on purpose—I didn’t want anyone to see how much of a downer I really was—but it came at the cost of me losing myself in the process. When I transferred to Wisconsin, that all changed. Or at least, I’d hoped it would. In reality, I spent my first semester wondering if I’d made a mistake. If this was just gonna be Iowa 2.0. After getting rejected from every improv and a cappella group imaginable, I remember breaking down in my apartment and vocalizing to my roommate—perhaps vocalizing for the first time to anyone—that being myself just didn’t seem to be enough.In a last-ditch attempt at trying to prove to myself and the world that I had some redeeming qualities, I joined a satirical newspaper. It didn’t seem as enticing as the improv clubs or a cappella groups. But it was something.Turns out, it was actually the thing that caused me to meet my best friend, Maddie. Coming to Wisconsin, I pledged to myself that I would take off the masks I’d worn at Iowa. I would be myself, and if I didn’t make any friends, then that was a bridge I’d cross later. So when I met Maddie—this whip-smart, hilarious girl I’d watched blaze through improv auditions with a kind of ease I’d never seen—I told myself that if she wanted to be my friend, I’d know I was doing something right.  And I guess I was doing something right. Maddie and I bonded over the fact that we were both transfers. We slowly but surely realized that neither of us really had any friends, but that didn’t seem to really matter now that we’d found each other. I’d met one of the most funny and thoughtful people on campus, and she liked me for me. Not whatever facade I’d put on as some sort of coping mechanism. Maddie showed me, and still shows me, what it means to be myself and be loved as is. Our friend duo quickly grew into a friend group, and each person who came into my life made me feel seen and valued in a way I’d never experienced before. Making those friends—finding people who genuinely enjoyed being around me as I am and not the me I pretended to be freshman year—I’ll never be able to fully articulate to them how much that means to me. How much they mean to me. This is my best attempt, I guess.I was not excited to go to college. I knew I was going to a school that wasn’t right for me, and I didn’t know who I was or who I wanted to be. Even more so, I wasn’t sure who was going to accept me once I did know. And it took a couple of tries and a lot of broken pride, but I found my way to a group of people who I know, truly, want to be my friend because I’m me, and not anyone else. And I’m pretty fuckin’ grateful for that.