So it’s been a week since my visit to Denison. I got to see a few really close friends that I miss a ton. Pat, Ted, Dianne, Chris, David, Di, Erin Bun, Di, Erin Squirrel, DAN, SARAH RUTH SMITH, Erin, Di, etc. It was a really fun trip, I even stayed an extra day to enjoy some quality (albeit short) time with Mr. (and soon to be Mrs.) Rohrer. I miss them all so much.
But It’s weird being at Denison. When I’m there, I’d rather just stay out at the Homestead, and not go anywhere on campus. I feel like I’m an intruder, waiting for Security to escort me off campus. It’s as if someone’s going to figure out I’m there, and storm the ENVS building when I’m there, or that an old professor is going to see me, shake their head, and think poorly of me. It’s like I should be wearing nice clothes, be successful and be in a great place. Then I get to thinking that I’m not (when I really am in a good place in my life, more on that later), and get sad or weirded out, then it all goes downhill.
One of the hidden highlights of staying an extra day was the midnight rendezvous with a wonderful visitor from the West Coast at Hound Dog’s in Columbus. Seeing Sarah again after not speaking with her for like 3 months was awesome. It was nice to let out all that had happened in the last few months all at once to someone, instead of trickling it out a bit at a time. It’s also nice to know that someone else is in a similar situation. It’s one thing to never have “it” after college. By “it” I mean whatever it is that you were expecting once you left the halls of undergraduate academia. I would imagine that never having it would be exceptionally painful, but for some reason having “it” then losing it is a special kind of pain mixed with humiliation that is hard to equate to anything else. The easy analogy would be love, but then you get all Shakespearean quotes up in the place and it goes to hell. And then you also run the risk of sounding a bit too damned whiny for your own good. Let’s just say it’s a feeling of abject failure that takes a bit to get over. However, once you do, it’s quite liberating. Finding someone else who is in the same situation is the kind of comforting only matched by a golden retriever and hot chocolate on a cold day. Suffice to say, I feel much different about my situation now, knowing someone else I know understands it.
I guess it’s just the combination of post-graduate angst with the knowledge that I’m done with my time at Denison that makes me uneasy when I visit. However, there’s no amount of uneasiness that overwhelms my want to see my friends, especially Erin, Di, Dan, and the sixman crew. When I realized that, I felt a lot better.
justinª