It's interesting what you remember about college.
When I look back at my college experience, I think that the most important thing that I learned was that people process grief differently.
I went to a very small catholic college in Vermont with about 2,000 students. Everyone knew everyone! Also, almost every single student lived on campus all four years so the college was not only where were we all went to school but it was also the place we called home.
In my senior year, we had two members of our senior class and a campus priest pass away in the first semester. All three of these humans were loved so deeply by the community that it was a tragic loss. Everywhere on campus, you could feel the heavy feeling of grief. Seeing the community come together to heal was such an empowering feeling. Together, we all were feeling so much pain but knew that we all had each other for support.
The ways in which classmates processed their grief taught me so much about humans and our complex emotions. For some, it was drinking more to numb their pain. For others, they processed it by taking time away from their schoolwork to heal. There were also classmates who attended the services of those who passed to help with their grief. Some used therapy services provided by the school to help them navigate their emotions. We all navigated this grief together but in so many different ways. We all picked ways that felt right for us - ways that helped us navigate the pain and hard emotions we were feeling.
I had lost relatives before college, but this was the first time I lost people in my life that were my age. People who sat beside me in class in the morning then were drinking and partying with me at someone's townhouse later that night. It was really hard. I felt guilty for feeling sad because I wasn't as close as other classmates. I felt so much pain knowing that that could have been me two years prior, as one of my classmates who passed died by suicide, and sophomore year when I was failing all my classes, I too considered ending my life. I felt loved and supported by the community that had been surrounding me for the past 4 years. I also felt afraid that my time at college was quickly coming to an end and I feared that there wouldn't be this kind of community outside of campus.
Seeing my classmates, professors, friends, and myself navigate this grief I learned that we all process differently and at different times. We all have different ways to cope with scary emotions & big uncomfortable feelings. I say this because I still find myself grieving their losses.
That semester, I was in a creative dance class and we had to create a final project on whatever our heart desired (clearly it was my favorite college class). With all the heavy emotions flooding through campus that semester, I created a "music video" for the song Good Greif by Bastille. I filmed people dancing at parties, friends laughing, fun late-night homework sessions where little homework was actually done, bike rides I would take through campus, and so on... My goal was to capture joy through movement because despite all the grief there were still many moments of joy through the community coming together.
Whenever I hear that song, which recently had been a lot (not sure why my Spotify account keeps playing it) I am reminded of college and that first semester, senior year. My favorite lyrics in the song are, "What's gonna be left of the world if you're not in it? What's gonna be left of the world? Every minute and every hour, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you more. Every stumble and each misfire I miss you, I miss you, I miss you more" and every time I hear these words I am reminded of the terrible loss, heartache, and pain I felt but I am also reminded of the love and community I was so lucky to be a part of for 4 years. I miss that community.
Grief is messy. Grief can linger. Grief looks and is processed differently by every single person. But, grief can also create love and community and I am so thankful for the Saint Michael's College community I had for 4 years.
That community taught me the skills I leverage daily. It's not the math equations I learned to solve in Calc 2 summer school or the Spanish verbs I spent hours learning how to conjugate with a tutor, that I use in "the real world". It's the things I learned outside of the classroom that are the skills I use to navigate my life.
College wasn't easy for me and I currently have zero plans to ever enter a classroom again but, if you asked me if my 4 years were worth it - my answer is 100% yes.
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