Mourning The College Experience I Thought I Would Have
I walked down the aisle in my red cap and gown hoping my hair was right and my shoes matched my dress that no none could see. I smiled as everyone clapped for me! I was done! We were done! Four years of dress codes and emo shirts. Four years of hoping my next chapter would make me happier and more confident. I sat down next to my best friend who was headed to Vermont in the next coming months, knowing we would be separated by at least five states. There was so much opportunity in the word Chicago. There was so much that was going to happen. So many people I would meet, so many things I would accomplish. The only thing I was thinking about as my no longer peers sat around me in tears, was the future. I would finally be in a place I could express my faith. I would finally be surrounded by people who understood my relationship with God, who understood my love for music and writing, and maybe even someone who understood the depression that was finally going to be over once I boarded that plane. They called the names and I didn’t care how I walked, who clapped for me or who didn’t. My life was just beginning as I exited the threshold of childhood and into the unknown world of living on my own and figuring it out alone.
The summer before Chicago, I waited anxiously, packing my bags months in advance, making the perfect playlist to play on the plane, mapping out exactly what I would do when I landed. I vowed to myself I would make friends. I would make them. I would let go of anger, confusion, depression and I would make friends. I was rooming with a family friend and knew everything was going to be peachy. I was confident.
Year One. Filled with laughter in the dining hall over the soggy lasagna, boy obsessed texts, tear filled chapel visits and community. We watched Lord of The Rings, we went shopping, we ordered pizza at midnight, we had fika and we were friends. The first day it snowed I cried from my window as my home-grown Californian eye’s saw the flakes fall to the ground that looked all too much like ash but happy. I spent the day shuffling my feet through the snow and looking up at the comfort of home at last. I cried the day I said goodbye to these people and these experiences knowing I was not going to see them till the Spring. My threshold was taking me to Sweden, I didn’t know why and I didn’t know how I would get there, I just went. My new known was this small community at North Park and my new unknown was across the ocean in a small town called Jönköping.
Year Two. Filled with bar visits, weekly updates about my time abroad, finding love, finding friendship and confidence. I spent my days among community, writing about my life, and laughing about stupid phrases. I again cried the day I left my new known. I was coming back to North Park a different person. I came back a straight A student, a faithfully driven leader, and a deep thinker. My first year friends I thought would last until we died started to drift apart, making me anxious and angry. Why were things not the same? Why was I not connecting back into this group? I came back to a campus without my pastor, my university lying to me about it, without my friends and without Sweden.
Year Three. Filled with texts from a new boyfriend, sleepy mono filled days, and new projects to work on. I was starting a living community. I pushed and pushed this project, wanting it to happen more than anything else. I met weekly with my partner, with mentors, and with the group wanting to make this happen with me as well. I prayed and baked and read and started to feel this eerie feeling of loss start to creep back up. The community I worked so hard to work started to fall through the cracks. My home started to break, I cleaned the house to Queen, I put on a pot of tea and tried to make it work. Why didn’t it? My pastor was gone, my friends were not the same, and my boyfriend was 2,000 miles away. Where was the full expression of my faith I was waiting for? Where was the understanding friends who knew my love for music and writing and wanted what I wanted? Where was God?
Year Four: Filled with anxiety for the future, movie nights with my new roommates, and avoiding all responsibilities. Stateville visits opening my mind and forming a community I didn’t think existed anymore. Frequent grocery store runs with my roommates, walks with my family, and trying to find myself again. The days turned into nights, going out with a new group I hoped would work out better than the first. We started laughing with each other, sharing with each other and loving each other.
STOP
I wake up at 3pm in a bed I didn’t own, in sheets I didn’t pick, in clothes I wore the previous day. Doors locked, lies spread and my parents crying in the other room. Could it be someone we knew next?
Death number 1 my apartment
Death number 2 my classes
I wouldn’t see my roommates again unless through a screen, I wouldn’t see my therapist again unless through a screen, I wouldn’t see outside again unless blocked by a mask.
Death number 3 going out with friends
Death number 4 a classmate
Death number 5 another classmate
I would never see my brothers in Stateville again, I wouldn’t see my last semester of College, I wouldn’t stop seeing grief.
Death number 6 graduation
I sit here now at 1:30 in the morning, at a newly sanitized desk, with four books for class unread. I have my perfectly orchestrated playlist playing, I hear the clicking of the clock next to me that's lost all meaning. I sit in pants I fell asleep in the night before and I’m mourning. I’m mourning the experience that the girl in the red cap and gown dreamt of. It’s not just the disease, it’s not just the distance, it’s not just numbness. It’s the group that didn’t last, it’s the university lies, it’s the travel homesickness, it’s the detachment and the longing, and the excitement and the community that is dead. Where is God?
God sits in the sofa across from me. A tear slowly falling from her squinted eyes. She doesn’t say anything as I type this. She sits in silence as I pray this prayer to her. I’ve come to realize through the midst of these losses that God likes to sit next to me. God sat in silence with me in the car ride home from freshman year, the plane ride home from Sweden, the table with coffee after my best friend moved out, in the bed I didn’t own during my tele-therapy session and across from me on the sofa.
I wish there was something I could tell the excited freshman. Something that would keep the giddy smile as she crosses the threshold. Something to warn her. Something to teach her. But most importantly I wish I could hug her. I wish I could tell her that A Hard Rain Is Gonna Fall. I wish I could give her a snow day. I wish I could give her a plane ticket. I wish I could give her a cup of coffee. I wish I could give her a resurrection. I wish I could give her a delivery. I wish I could give her graduation.