i didn’t peak in college!
or maybe i did.

in four years, i got a degree, i drank a lot of shitty beer, cried over taylor series, ate a lot of chipotle, tried yoga, biking, running, singing, piano, lost two pairs of perfectly white shoes to the frat basement gods (rip), pulled more all nighters than i can count, fell out of my really lofted bed, fell out of my bed in the cold dorm, fell out of my roommate’s bed, forfeited too many golf balls to the water, fraternized in the library (every day), and threw down aces in our (only) local dive bar.

and i loved every second of it

i didn’t like every second of it,
in fact, a lot of it really sucked
but i loved every second of it.
the people, the places, the stories, the lessons

my father always told me, you can really only love people and pets. but somehow, i found a love for a place. before i went to depauw, nobody told me that i would find my peace, my home, my family. for me, it was the first time, i was truly free. free to laugh. free to dance. free to cry. i fell in love with existing in the little castle in the cornfields.

i fell in love with unprompted conversations in the bathroom, chortling in dining room in the mornings before class, midnight mc donald’s runs, star gazing on the reavis bleachers, choosing my skanky top for the evening, travis scott goosebumps before workouts.

i fell in love with seeing a familiar face in julian (every face was familiar), making buldak ramen with my roommate in her illegal hot pot, unprompted heists, sticky floors, quiet snowy walks across campus, bad slogans (what does “take advantage” even mean?), love island in the informal, hungover team breakfasts (being fed bread was maybe the lowest point), galas we got to dress up to go to even though they were in the same room we played ping pong in two hours before.

i fell in love with the nights we would stay up listening to folk music covered in the taste of rum and coke, i fell in love with oversharing with people i saw more than i saw my own reflection in the mirror. i fell in love with watching the next class get to experience the exhilaration of a dorm storm (ew), and watching them fuse into what would become our little family.

shower parties, marg mondays, wells wednesdays, qualifying weekends, study tables, monon tailgates, rush weeks, really awful golf team parties, thanksgiving adventures, midterm scaries. i wish i could tell you every perfect little moment, and separate them with a cute little comma, but i don’t have enough storage and you don’t have enough time.

moments on campus felt like my own little fairy tale and if you asked me that while i was in it, i would tell you the exact same thing. i never counted down the days, i barely even looked at my watch… okay, except for when i was begging for my begrudgingly boring epistemology class to be over. and as cliché as it may sound, every time i walked across that little campus, i was filled with a kind of solace and appreciation i can’t quite describe. depauw was a little bubble, a little sanctuary if you will. filled with a lot of really nonsensical characters (me included…). but somehow, every familiar face became a piece of my home (situationships, frenemies, npcs all included).

things were not perfect by any means. yeah, i had my fair share of mental breakdowns, falling outs, failed exams, panic attacks, and lonely nights. there was a little more dark and twisted than i was expecting. it was all there, but something about depauw was safe. i always knew i had support. i always tell people that depauw felt like the safest place to fail, a safety net if you will. when i was at my worst, i went home to friends whose eyes were peeled to dress to impress. if i was hungry, i could always count on my regular hoover dates. if i couldn’t sleep, my little was definitely downstairs with a bowl of cereal and her organic chemistry book wide open. if i felt unmotivated, i always had someone who insisted we go to the gym or the golf course or the library. and if all else failed, i had my shoes and my fifteen hour long playlist to get me through it all.

i love depauw. because i got to hear my friends nerd out about their soil labs, ticketmaster econ papers, the newest books on gender equality, computer science projects about mitski. i got to take an entire class about water (i kind of thought i would fail!) and made memories with all my classmates (guys. trust the tap.). i got to have conversations that profoundly changed the way i think, and i got to have conversations that also reinforced the way i think. i got to meet friends from corners of the earth i’ve never even dreamed of, and i got to meet friends who wore midwestern hospitality on their sleeves. i learned that some people are stuck with you forever and that sometimes, the people you thought were, aren’t right for you.

before going to college, i knew i was going to learn something about some random topic (how it became math? i don’t know) and i was going to try and figure out what to do with the next century of my life, but little did i know that these four years would give me the gift of finding who i really am. these four years taught me the value of community. the value of showing up for people. the value of little waves and big smiles. i don’t think i will ever truly get over how special my eighteen-hundred student experience was. and everyday, when i get a message from a friend or a teammate or a sister or a linkedin request from a current freshman, i get reminded of the family we built.

and ever since i left, i have been chasing that same comfort and peace, but i’m slowly realizing no place will ever hold the same magic. in every reunion, every phone call starting with “hank!”, every happy hour with an acquaintance visiting dc, every formal post on instagram with faces i no longer recognize, i’m reminded of the place that brought us together, the unspoken tomfoolery.

one of my best friends gave the speech at graduation, and she said it’s the people who make a place a home.

depauw, thank you for becoming my home.

xoxo
hank.