May 1, 2015.
When I'm having
a hard day in regards to graduation people's first line of comfort is to tell
me that I'll come back to visit. I appreciate their intention, their honest
pursuit to cheer me up, reassure me, give me perspective on the reality of the
year to come. But there's one thing they don't understand about that line of
assurance: no matter how often I visit I will never again be a part of life
here. Sure, I'll come up on weekends and spend time here, but I will never be a
part of what's going on. I'll always have the fragmented perspective of an
outsider. Instead of hanging out with my friends I'll grab coffee to
"catch up" with them. Instead of knowing what's going on I'll have to
be filled in. After May 16th I'll no longer be closely involved in the tapestry
of Gordon life. I'll be observing from a far while sometimes getting just close
enough to run my fingers over lose threads. But I will never again be a piece
of the weaving itself. I'll always be a degree off, a degree separated. I'm
selfish in hurting the way I do about my upcoming removal and absence from
Gordon life. I'm focused inwardly on how it hurts me, changes me, impacts me.
But I don't know what else to do. Because in just over two weeks Gordon won't
be home anymore. I won't have a room to come back to at the end of the day, a
bed that's just my own, a meal plan, chapel credits, class schedules. I'll no
longer be a name on the roster, or a Spiritual Life Group leader, or a mission
trip member. I'll be an alum. And when I come back to visit, it'll only be that
much clearer how I once belonged and don't anymore, how I was once part of the
story, but now my chapters turned. When I come back to visit I'll be ever so
slightly estranged, my role shifted. It's weird it almost feels like a form of
rejection. So when people offer me comfort by telling me I'll be back to visit,
I almost feel just a little bit worse. Because I know that for all of the joy
I'll get in visiting the friends I'm leaving here I'll be greeted with the
feeling of being an outsider looking in on what used to be my whole life. I
know I will come back, I will visit, but it'll never be the same for me.
Because for the first time, and forever, I will be just that, a visitor.
[alc]
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