I went back to my alma mater yesterday for the first time in two years. I say that like Notre Dame is a parent or close friend who I have neglected for far too long, ‘Two years!’ as if i should feel guilty. And that is how it feels, for better or worse (for better or worse! oh god, this language, I know).

It does feel like a family, and I know they strive for that, they peddle it (and believe me, business is good). Walking around campus was a little like how it felt to go home and be with old friends and feel all your insecurities come rushing back; all growth disappears and familiar roles return as if you never outgrew them. There was a distance, however superficial, walking across quads zombie-like, the words you can’t go home again echoing in my mind despite dismissal and next-level eye-rolling.

But then I walked into the library, swung open the heavy door and it smelled the same, like old books and unfinished papers, like no sleep and diet soda and never having the right clothes. When we wandered around Lafun, the student union, I wondered who I would see before I remembered I didn’t know anyone anymore, didn’t have a boy that I hoped would be sitting across the way with the crossword, didn’t need to avoid any professors to whom I owed overdue work. I looked at different benches longingly- this was where Chris came out to me before I left for Rome, this is where Stephen told me he was too afraid and I read him a Robert Duncan poem about fellatio, just to torture him. This is where the janitor sat next to me while I was writing and told me I looked like a sexy leprechaun whose smile could be used in the case of a power outage, to light up campus. This is where I stood to cry and call my mom and panic that I would never finish my senior thesis. This is where we fought. Where I sat on a bench and read. Here is the tree where I hung poetry. This is the place where I felt not good enough. This is the walk I took every day with Ani DiFranco on repeat. This is the library carrel where we sat for hours and never did an ounce of work. This is the church I never went to. The dorm I used to party in. The grass we laid in and read and talked for hours but never kissed. I put my blanket here and you called and told me you had left and were already out of the state by now so I guess we didn’t get to say goodbye. And, sorry.

I saw these new girls who wear the t-shirts and the short shorts and the facepaint and they’re drunk and hopeful and inadequate, just like we were. I wanted to hug them and tell them it will all be alright. That this will be tough but it will all be alright and man, they should have mandatory therapy here instead of nuns cornering you and asking you why you haven’t been going to class and are you depressed? Of course I’m depressed! I am in Indiana and I hate myself and no one will fuck me!

There were new buildings everywhere. We had cigarettes but no light. No one smoked. “Why didn’t we smoke in college?” we said, as if we weren’t miserable enough. “We would have been more miserable but at least we would have been able to romanticize it.”

I wandered out onto the sidewalk while everyone was watching the end of the game and walked the way I would back to my old dorm, half expecting to run into someone or see something meaningful. I found someone’s Blackberry on a bench and turned it into Lost & Found and the student worker guy said, “Man, that’s a big phone to lose!” and I laughed a little to be nice and shrugged and left and felt nothing, not even heroic (which I was hoping for!).

They’ve put signs all over campus, “Educating the heart and mind,” which is nice, I think, and true. For better or worse.