Photo by Celine
As I descended over Philadelphia this morning - which is half of the flight from Raleigh anyway- it hit me that the nostalgia I feel around coming back here is rooted in two main things: joy over the adult I’ve become and grief.
The grief that comes with realizing you did the thing you were trying to do all those years - grow up. Become who you are instead of imitating your idea of who you should be. And the versions of you that helped you get to you, now, they’re all memories.
Like all of the best things in life, that’s beautiful and heartbreaking. Not because I’d go back, but because something is gone and I can never get it back, and that holds an inherent quality of sadness.
As the plane tilted and turned, as planes typically do when trying to land, I caught sight of the skyline. I had that view that the phone cameras go up for - a clear, window-seat view of the skyline and the entire city over the Delaware River.
I forgot how cement and brick and man-made it was, reader. Where was the green? was my first thought, and my second was, no wonder I needed to leave this place. I could never survive in such a lifeless landscape.
The joy, reader, the joy to be back as my 25-year-old self with all of who I was and who I am along for the ride. It takes being around a lot of college students to appreciate what I love about being an adult. I love not having to be around people I don’t like. I love the quiet of my home. I love cleaning the floors because I want to. I love doing nothing because I can. I even don’t mind paying my own phone bill. I like spending money on things because I earned it.
I love the sense of rootedness that comes with being confident in who I am.
I can sense a thousand ghosts of myself following me around. The me who learned in those classrooms I’m writing outside right now. The me who taught in those classrooms. The me who had what she thought was such a romantic date in that very particular spot on campus but later had an unexpected breakup nearby. The me who clung to her friends like they were little life rafts - because they really were. The me who remembers when the quad looked different or when Saxby’s still had a British Islander on the menu. (Bring it back!) The me who was sexually assaulted in that dorm right over there.
I want to tell them how it’s going. That they grow up and they’re a writer - yes, really!- and life is still hard, but it’s so joyful. There are no sleep-deprived nights or stress-filled days worrying about whether it will all be enough. If I’ll be enough for this world.
I wish I could tell them I know I’m enough now. I walk more slowly. I notice the plants on campus. Coleus. Ornamental grasses. Cattails. Ivy. Hydrangea.
I don't want to ruin the surprise of how life will continue to flourish for all of my thousands of ghosts, though. No one ruined it for me.
As I’ve been walking around today, getting work done and taking in the world I’m not quite a visitor in but definitely not a resident in, I think I would tell anyone in college this.
It will all change. You will change and the world will change and everything you think you know in this moment will change. It will happen too quickly and it will break you open and you will never be the same but you will be okay.
You will be okay.
So don’t get too stuck in the drama of what Brad from Chemistry texted you or if you’re going to do well in Physics this semester, even though you bombed last semester. Don’t go out tonight if you don’t want to.
Learn what you want. Learn what you like. Learn more about who you are. That’s what you’re paying $70,000 a year for, after all. It’s not for the education. It’s so you can try new things while being financially secure - until you have to pay it all back. But that’s an adult problem. *wink*
From Philadelphia, that’s all for now.
xx
Camille
This is so beautiful. I would love to take my kids to visit my college campus once, but it's in Nebraska and we're not just driving through 😂