Thoughts from Dr. Joe: Going away to college is a rite of passage

By Joe Puglia

Aug. 18, 2016 11:23 AM PT

The transition away from home has many steps, some of them larger than others. Each step is intertwined with a brief return home. It seems to me that we prepare to leave as soon as we learn to walk.

It is, of course, a rite of passage. Every positive change — every jump to a higher level of energy and awareness — involves a rite of passage. Each time, in order to ascend to a higher rung on the ladder of personal evolution, we must go through a period of discomfort, of initiation.

Going away to college is such a transition. It kind of sneaks up on the parents of kids heading off for higher education. I can picture Simone walking down La Cañada Boulevard holding her mother’s hand, the two of them heading to Simone’s first day of school at La Cañada Elementary. And, now, within the blink of an eye, her destination is the University of Texas at Austin.

I can’t believe it’s actually happening. Simone is leaving for college. Shouldn’t there be some sort of ritual? In “Iron John: A Book about Men,” Robert Bly writes about certain primitive tribes in the heart of Borneo where there’d be some incredible four-day rites of passage ceremony involving tattooing and potent hallucinogenic drugs extracted from tree frogs, and village elders smearing one’s body with iguana blood. But here, the rite of passage into college is all about 10 trips to Bed Bath & Beyond. Does anybody actually know the metaphor for Beyond?

Philosopher and mythologist Joseph Campbell defines a quest of any kind as a heroic journey. He explains that such a transition is fraught with challenge, the conduit toward higher ground. To me, the higher grounds of life are defined as survivability.

For the past two months, Kaitzer has been preparing Simone for college. They have compiled enough of everything to account for every eventuality. When I left for college in August ’65, I carried one suitcase and a Smith Corona typewriter. I had one dress white shirt, which I still have today. Regardless, I was swept away. To this day, I remember my joys, my sorrows, my griefs. I remember the excitement of the unknown. It was as if my departure was nothing I’d known. However, as I continued my journey through a myriad of experiences that would last forever, I had no idea of what the future held. And in my case, it was best I didn’t know. Regardless, those moments of leaving home were a powerful time of life. My childhood was done.

D-Day was Aug. 12. We would split our forces and I would drive Simone to Austin while Kaitzer would fly with our older daughter, Sabine, to the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, and personally clean the Venetian blinds in Sabine’s room. Kaitzer would then join me in Austin and slip on her hermetically sealed suit so she could sanitize, Simonize and pasteurize Simone’s dormitory room. I assume she didn’t have confidence that I was up for that task. Kaitzer must not have read the memo that germs build your immune system.

I can’t believe Kaitzer was trusting me to drive the almost 1,400 miles to the University of Texas. College is an adventure but we would have our own adventure getting to Austin. Read me next week and I’ll give you the “Reader’s Digest” version of our trip, which we dubbed “Austin or bust.”

JOE PUGLIA is a practicing counselor, a retired professor of education and a former officer in the Marines. Reach him at doctorjoe@ymail.com. Visit his website at doctorjoe.us.