Some Sort of Strange Study Abroad

About a month ago I was skyping with my very first and one of my absolute best friends from William & Mary. We were trading stories about post-college life when she finally asked, “Do you ever feel like we’re on study abroad and you’re just waiting to go back next fall?”

Even though I am on the very campus I knew as a student (writing this from a picnic table I used to lounge on as an undergrad), my answer remains a resounding YES! My geographic location hasn’t changed, but being an alum and a staff member at William & Mary is a completely different world.  Despite all the wonderful things in this world, there is no doubt that there are days in which I wish to return to my undergrad life. In fact I sometimes think of undergraduate life as Narnia, and then this clip starts playing in my head.  (Silly Aslan and his rules!)

Driving down Jamestown Road on my way to an evening meeting, I passed students laughing with friends as they walked home and it felt like I was driving through my own memories. While I know I can’t return to that world and those memories that doesn’t mean it isn’t tempting to try. . . Chelsea (another VISTA and Class of 2011) once sent me a g-chat from the Daily Grind exclaiming, “I feel so incognito right now. You don’t know I’m not a student.”  I once stayed after work for a film screening, and as I changed from my work attire into my old and comfortingly familiar uniform of jeans and a grey William & Mary hoodie,  it felt like slipping out of my grown-up self and into a past life.

So much of this campus is embedded with who I am. Moments of laughter, play, studying, discovery, friendship and friend drama, laziness, celebration, adventure, heart break, questioning, success, and even watching trashy tv with friends have been witnessed by this campus since 1693, and my memories add just another layer. (If these bricks could talk.)  As I walk across campus for assessment meetings instead of classes, toward administrative offices and emails instead of the Sunken Gardens and a nice nap in the sun, I have moments of remembering and wonder if it’s possible to be in one place and yet two times at once.

This is some kind of strange study abroad that I’m pretty sure I never get to return from.  Yet William & Mary will always be here for me as an incredible place that has shaped the core of who I am.  Always will this be my family, my home, and my pensieve. And maybe one day an owl will drop a scroll in my lap saying I’ve been accepted to return. (I just realized that would be an awesome way to receive our Homecoming invitations—think about it Alumni Association.)

P.S. I do believe this post might be my personal record for number of mixed metaphors and pop-culture references. My sincere gratitude to you for putting up with it.