After months of saying I wouldn’t come back in May to graduate, here I am. And this is
You keep coming back to this, this empty dorm room, the lengthening and shortening of your hair, from a tank top to a sweatshirt to a t-shirt.
Last night, you got to campus, and you went out for a drive with Sebastian, because he has become one of your closest friends, and you can talk to him about anything, and he’s happy you’re up here. You stopped at Scotty’s for breakfast food. On the drive home, you talked about how you’re both nostalgic people – how this time of year, this weather just plays on the sentimentalist in you.
You come home (and yes, you did just call it home) and you think about how this little room in Fain C feel so right to you. You went through so much in it. You arrived early that semester – you could have had your pick of rooms. Keith already had claims on the biggest one. Erin wanted the same room she had last year. The two other rooms are bigger. You almost took the room that is now Leah’s. But you didn’t. This room just felt right to you.
You moved into this empty dorm room in September a broken, sad, mess of a person. You moved out of this empty dorm room in December as a stronger person, at peace with all events and circumstances. In this room, you cried so hard you broke the capillaries around your eyes. In this room you giggled with Xina over irrelevant bit of humor. Tonight, you went out for one beer with her – at DA’s where she took you last year at midnight to celebrate your 21st birthday, even though both of you were hungover and didn’t want to drink – and you hugged her good-bye, and you both chastised yourself for being so god damn maudlin, because you were supposed to have been done with this place in December. But here you are, in that empty dorm room that just feels right, where you drank bottles of vodka, and screamed over the phone, and cried over the phone, and finally flirted over the phone. In this room you learned more in four months that you learned in the rest of college combined. You changed in this room. You didn’t realize how much these four walls had meant to you until you came back in early April, and felt that it was exactly where you needed to be.
You feel that way now too, and that’s why you came back. You came back, because you wanted to skip through Case parking lot barefoot and proclaim, “I’m a dirty hippie college student!” and embarrass Sebastian, who’s dressed in a suit. You wanted to be here, because you’re going to walk with Xina who has been with you since day one at Skidmore, and you’re going to sit with Kristen. Today, Kristen’s mom showed you a picture of the two of your at your nursery school graduation. You’re both wearing paper mortarboard hats. You looked at each other and said “We are getting old” because you’ve known each other for eighteen years. You have never been the best of friends, or even close friends, but you have been through a lot together. You want a picture of the two of you in your college regalia. You came back, because you got to bring your parents to the government department reception and introduce them to the professors they had heard so much about. You got to hear your professors tell your parents wonderful things about you, things you know were genuine because you heard what they said to other people’s parents, and you know what a cliché sounds like. You came back, because after the reception, you went to dinner with your parents, who looked at you and said, “I had no idea you were this well regarded! Your professors really respect you…we’re so proud of you.”
You came back, because you wanted to see your favorite professor, who gave you a hug and said, “You’re glowing! Tell me all about this post-college life of yours.” You came back because Sebastian tells you that you do indeed rock a suit and heels, and you sit together and make plans to take over the political science Department of Columbia University. You came back, because you got to find out that you’ve accomplished your goal of being a footnote.
You came back, because you wanted to walk up the Scribner steps and walk across campus and breathe the spring air. You haven’t cried, but you’ve felt “weepy” but it’s in a good way – you have something to be nostalgic about. Last May, you sat on the porch of your old Scribner house, the one that never really felt like home, and scoffed when Evan told you that by December you would have something to feel nostalgic about. He was right about that, because by December you were realizing that you did build yourself a little world here. And now, a year after that conversation, you can’t express what this place has meant to you. Yes, you were lonely. Yes, you never quite fit in. Yes, you hated it sometimes and you wanted nothing more than to graduate and get out. But you wouldn’t change a think about it.
You came back, because you like the person that this place made you, and you like the person you’re becoming. You came back, because you wanted to celebrate the good that this place has given you, and the sentimental sap in you loves the pomp and circumstance of graduation. You came back, because you’re not indifferent to this place – you only thought you were.
You came back, because, even though December held a second beginning, and this May hold what should be a final end, you feel at peace. You feel like everything is okay. You feel like you are strong enough to don regalia and walk, even though this is a place that brought you heartache. You feel strong enough to defy the tyranny of the majority.
You came back, because even though you finished the degree requirements in December, you’ve treated yourself like a college student. You treated those months as a time to earn money, do what you needed to do, and now you feel absolutely ready to face the real world, and do what you want to do. You came back because you want to celebrate that you can do what you want to do.
You came back, because you weren’t done yet, and sitting in this empty dorm room, you know you finally are. You are sad, but not depressed-sad, maudlin-sad. And then you’re happy that you have something to be nostalgic about in the first place.
You’re sitting in an empty dorm room. Your hair is shorter than it was in December, longer than it was last May. You’re wearing a tee-shirt, not a tank top or sweatshirt. The weather is right now, for it to be an ending. You’re sitting in an empty dorm room, and you feel all right. You feel like your life is headed in the right direction. You scan this little room, and know that this is really the end, and you won’t be coming back like this ever again, and while it makes you a little sad, it makes you happy to know that you had something here to leave in the first place.
You keep coming back to this, this empty dorm room, and after this, you won’t. This is the REAL end; this is the end you wanted to avoid, because you were afraid you would get like this, and afraid getting like this would depress you. It doesn’t. You’re nostalgic, because there are parts of this place that you love…that you DID love. You are in your empty dorm room, where you grew up more in four months that you would have in four years of college, and you’re just, to use the hippie terminology, at peace. You are so happy to feel the way you feel. You came back because you wanted to remind yourself of that.
So you’re sitting in your empty dorm room, in jeans and a black tee-shirt (your fallback outfit in warm months), and you’re so glad you came back.
And if makes you happy then that’s the only excuse you need.
