Heading to home base

Bridget left first. All five Russos drove up with her to OU to say goodbye. All five of them crowded into her tiny dorm room, helped her unpack her clothes, set up her room, make her bed and settle in. After that they spent the next two days with her, hanging out and exploring the area. During that time Bridget was trying to mentally prepare for when her family left. 

“Saying goodbye to me was really sad,” Bridget said.

A week after Bridget, Will left. Melissa drove him up to A&M, but it was a quick goodbye. Melissa was quickly ushered out after Will decided to hang out with his roommate.

Bella left that very night. She took her car with her and drove off to UT. 

“I stood out in the street and watched her drive away,” Melissa said. “We actually took a video of it, and I was crying. It is such a symbolic thing to watch your child drive away. It brought back memories of when I watched my parents leave me at college for the first time. You’re so excited to go and then all of a sudden you’re sad to see your parents leave but excited too. It’s a mix of emotions for sure.”

Each kid has been adjusting differently to their respective schools. Each of their colleges is so different, they couldn’t possibly have the same experience.

Bella has been experiencing a whole new side of Austin at UT. She’s flourishing there. She goes to a lot of shows and is a part time campus DJ on Thursdays under the name “DJ Libel.”

“Bella is experiencing Austin in a whole different way because she’s independent,” Melissa said. “She’s going to do whatever she wants, to go to see different bands and concerts. In the beginning, she wanted to move far away, just to have that unique experience. And then she ended up deciding on UT, and she’s loving it because she loves Austin. She used to tell me she wished we didn’t live in Austin so she could go to Austin for school. But she seems to be thriving.”

Even though Bella stayed in Austin, her hometown, the biggest adjustment for her has been being away from home. 

“It feels like a new city just because the campus is so contained,” Bella said. “It’s almost a city within Austin. There’s always something to do … and concerts and shows and interesting people to talk to.”

Bridget at OU has also been struggling with being so far from home. She misses Austin and feels homesick, but she’s still confident that she has made the right decision.

“I miss Austin, I missed it all being familiar, but I love it here,” Bridget said. “The campus is beautiful, and I’m a business major, and I really like business, so I think I’ve picked a good major.”

Beyond missing Austin, Bridget misses the people in Austin. She says that she doesn’t fit in at OU in the same way that she did back home.

“The people at OU are just different [than the people] from Austin,” Bridget said. “Austin is like a high level of awesome. I love people from Austin, but people are different from different places, and it’s not that I don’t fit in, there’s just like a lot of different people here. I feel like it has been hard finding people that I do love just because there’s a lot of people here and a lot of people from different places.”

Will has also realized just how different his new hometown, College Station, is from Austin.

He decided to join the Corps of Cadets at A&M, a military prep group focused on preserving Aggie traditions. He says that the experience has been really different than anything in Austin.

“I enjoy it, but it’s not for everybody,” Will said. “ I didn’t like it at the beginning, but I have come to enjoy it a little bit.”

Will said it was hard at first, going off to college in another city and joining the corps. Both were very different from anything he had ever experienced, which made the college transition harder.

“It was like my first time being out of the house alone, and that coupled with being yelled at was weird,” Will said. “It was just like a different environment. There’s definitely been a lot of homesickness and a lot of culture shock in a way.”

The Corps hasn’t allowed for a very flexible schedule for Will. He only gets three chances to go home in the fall semester. Because of his schedule, he hasn’t seen a lot of his family recently. 

“I haven’t been back home once since the start of the school year,” Will said. “I know it’s kind of depressing, but I’m going back in a couple of weeks. I’ve been busy.”

He’s been keeping in contact through phone calls. He calls his parents every weekend, but keeping in touch with his siblings has been harder.

The last time they talked was on Oct. 9, just after the OU and UT game.

It was there that his sisters experienced the Red River rivalry up close and personal.