This is How I Said Goodbye to College Park

“If I could just… go there one last time. If I could have it my way, I would go pack my lunch right now, set my alarm for when I would wake up at 7:30 like I always do, drive on the beltway, walk to all my classes as I usually would, and just… I’m missing closure. If I could at least have a goodbye on my own terms, I –”

“Dude… I think you just found out what you’re doing tomorrow.”

 It wasn’t a surprise to me when I got the email that day (that classes wouldn’t resume in person), but it didn’t make it any easier for the saddening news to settle.

“What do you mean? I can’t!”

“Why not?”

 He had already been on the phone with me for over an hour.

 “Because I don’t know if they’ll tow my car! Who knows if someone is there and they send me home… you really think I should just get in my car tomorrow morning and do it?”

“You know… you’re not going to like me for saying this, but, you kind of, like… you don’t take any risks.”

I stopped to pause and wonder if that could be true as he continued,

 “You just do the things that you know you’ll succeed at, and… yeah, you don’t take any risks. You should just do it.”

That was a conversation I had on a phone call two months ago: when we all began to feel the inevitable impacts of the globe’s crisis.

No different than the past several nights in March, when this madness all began, I went to bed that night with the thoughts spinning in ceaseless circles: China got to return to normal life, wondering if restaurants and gyms would reopen in a month, praying that by morning, Italy would finally hit its peak… 

… I woke up the next morning and called DOTS, the University of Maryland parking system. I tried dozens of different phone numbers before realizing maybe an email would be my best shot. 

Once I got an email granting my ability to park on campus apologizing for my senior year being cut short, I picked a day. But then… Hogan issued a stay-at-home order.

So here I am, in late May, writing this from Mckeldin Mall. The college campus that I took for granted before; alongside everything else.

I reset a day to relive it all, one last time – with intention and knowing that it’s the end of an era. The world seems now more than ever to be my metaphorical canvas: because it’s cool Monday morning, yet, the leafy green trees for summer have already sprouted.

My alarm went off at 7:30 sharp, and I hit snooze for ten minutes… in other words, no different than what I would’ve normally done. I hopped in the shower, and threw on my too-dressy-for-other-college-kids-outfit of overalls and tennis shoes. I watched my Friends episode, and then threw my lunch, camera, and laptop into the car – and I was off.

Pulling out my driveway, no different than I had a million times… somehow, felt like just any other Monday off to College Park.

There was a surprising sense normalcy. You would think after several weeks of being confined to your two mile-radius-of-a-neighborhood, that you would forget what you used to do so often… but it turns out, old habits do die hard.

There was a driver I could’ve assumed to be drunk at nine in the morning driving between two lanes. I even had to honk my horn… and it brought me a silent, but great joy… because I felt like myself again: needing to yell at the maniac drivers I usually pass by too often from behind the windows of my windshield wipers.

There was a moment where I was so tight between a truck and another car on the beltway… the beltway had moderate traffic. Leave it to the DMV area, even during a pandemic, where people are working from home… to have reliable, steady traffic.

Normally, I would’ve complained about that… but it felt nice to be surrounded by other cars, other humans – even if their faces were anonymous. It felt like I was returning to some sense of routine.

There were moments of extreme familiarity, along with moments of extreme confusion. Blasting songs in my car made me feel like I was right back in my lane. Sometimes I would make a turn on the beltway and question if I went the right way… and then I would see the Bethesda church, and feel extreme comfort. I questioned if Adelphi road was ever that long, and then I realized – it just feels that long, because I haven’t gone more than three miles from my house in two months.

When I got to the campus, I parked right in my old parking lot. It was eerie for it to be empty, but the campus itself wasn’t. There were other people, workers, students – walking around doing the same thing I was.

I walked by each building, re-lived every moment, every idiosyncratic thing that I ever did at College Park.

I rubbed Testudo’s head… somehow, suddenly aware – that this was now in the past: watching other kids leave him gifts before exams, praying that he would let them pass.

Walking the campus, I felt physically aligned with my unexpected virtual, “graduation” of College Park. I felt the reality sink in… the bittersweet taste of knowing, that this chapter in my life is closing. There was a sad, but sweet solace in that – and it helped me to let go. To take back control of at least one thing that the coronavirus had taken from me.

I always took UMD for granted, and complained about how ugly the campus was. I never even laid down on the grass, and basked in a perfect spring day on Mckeldin Mall… if there’s anything that any of us can learn from this, it’s that we don’t know how good we’ve got it until it’s gone. We take the everyday for granted, and as something to be expected – when it really needs to be a blessing.

The truth is, I never even wanted to go to college, but I made the best of the situation – and College Park became a wonderful, beautiful escape for me from my little neighborhood. I saw it as a social gathering, and extra-curricular activity to mingle and meet new people… and all along, that’s exactly what college was supposed to be for me.

Sitting at Mckeldin Mall now, hearing so many birds chirp and squirrels scurry by Testudo and I, I’m thinking of everything I have ever done here. I’m thinking of right before I went to Europe the first time, and the excitement I felt before each trip I took around the world.

I made it to Australia, New Zealand, and Japan… all while at College Park. The anticipation before finishing each exam, knowing I would head back to my car, and set foot on another piece of Earth before coming home to terp territory once more. 

My last semester at UMD was cut short, but it was also more meaningful. I would’ve never had such a personal & intimate goodbye with College Park if it weren’t for this pandemic. Sure, I could’ve come back in November, but it wouldn’t have been the same… because it’s a mental thing, to turn the page. Once I, and everyone else moves on with their lives after this… going back to this time won’t be a state of mind we’ll want to return to.

This is what I wrote back in March, thinking I would edit it and feel it after going to the campus one last time:

After going through the stages of grief, this past week: of being angry for everything being out of my control, for being deeply saddened that so many seniors around the world have been robbed of irreplaceable experiences… to now. To accepting what is.

Maybe covid-19 was meant to be.

I’ve always been a firm believer that everything is meant to be exactly the way it’s supposed to, and that the universe makes no mistakes. 

 So… why haven’t I been able to see it any differently, with this?

This has impacted everyone in a different way, and everyone’s going to cope with it a different way. There is no right or wrong timeline for how long it’s going to take for each and every one of us to process this. 

For me, it wasn’t until I was on the phone with a friend where I realized what this time means to me.

This is a time, when we’re all going to see people for their true perspectives, personalities, and priorities. When everyone in Maryland begins to resume their lives… I won’t be there to join, because I’m going to start my life over somewhere else.

This is my time, and my chance to slowly say goodbye to Maryland and all of the experiences and people that were a part of this chapter.

 Endings aren’t supposed to be easy, and making them abrupt doesn’t make processing its inevitable closure any easier… but everything does always work out the way that it’s supposed to, and it does always work out for the best.

All of this is our ultimate chance to confront our fears in the face of a new reality. 

Sitting here on the lawn of Mckeldin Mall for the very first and last time, I finally see that there is a solution to everything if you let there be one.

And here’s what I actually feel, sitting at Mckeldin Mall in May:

The past few days, I have fallen victim to true situational depression. I have barely left my bed – because I have found no motivation or meaning to anything. The pandemic continues to crush everything in its wake – and it continues to leave me feeling helpless, hopeless, and all out of faith.

I feel like I’m empty on the inside; like a car without a motor or gas to fuel a goal. I feel amazed that I got up and came here today; I feel grateful that I came here today – because walking this campus, letting the memories slip by me like sand between my fingers: I realize that I have finished my time here, and that I have gotten my closure walking past all of the places that once held so much significance to me.

But I also realized being here, on an empty campus, that it isn’t the buildings that made the memories… it was the people and the time I spent with them inside those buildings.

All I know sitting here, is that every moment we live eventually becomes a part of the past; a page you can’t rewrite – but one that you can always look back on whenever you want.

So… here’s to all of the memories.

Here’s to the girl I would cross the street with every day from Tawes towards the heart of campus wondering if the Dutch boy ever read my letter. 

Here’s to every time I heard my car beep behind me before heading to class.

Here’s to the guy who was rushing that semester and never did the PowerPoint for our group project who texted me in the Plant Sciences building, asking me to do it last minute that same morning it was due.

Here’s to laughing with her when I told her he asked me out over canvas email.

Here’s to that music theory class that I poured my heart into, woke up at 5am for twice a week, and still barely passed.

Here’s to every long walk to Lot 6 that I had to make before I had the seniority to park in Stadium Drive’s Lot… where I would pass the Eppley Center and Ellicott’s community dining hall, wondering whether the aroma of tacos or burgers would fill the air.

Here’s to the professor that said I should meet him for coffee and see where it goes.

Here’s to walking by Tawes on a Wednesday and silently scoping out the Farmer’s Market – and simultaneously sneaking between the long lines for the food trucks to get to class.

Here’s to that annoying first fire alarm every month.

Here’s to hiding our phones under the table to text, and exchanging telling faces during our long, poetry workshops. 

Here’s to my Chaucer professor who said he’s never had someone recite their required lines in old English to the tune of, ‘Nobody’s Perfect’ by Hannah Montana.

Here’s to every elevator button on campus that I ever abused out of impatience.  

Here’s to the lab science class I took that summer where we cooked with plants from UMD’s garden and watched Disney’s Coco in the background. 

 Here’s to every god-damn time I had to use Duo-Push.

Here’s to every sluggish drive on I-495.

 Here’s to that sweet digital fiction class that was half-vegan and didn’t mind a good pizza party.

Here’s to hugging my English teacher after finishing my first semester ever, saying how excited I was to be on a plane to Paris for the first time in ten days.

 Here’s to that Spanish teacher who said, “vale” half a million times.

 Here’s to that COMM107 class where 20 of 25 people were tattooed. 

Here’s to almost always running late to our classes because we had too much to catch up on for a mere, but meaningful, ten minutes in the hallway.

Here’s to the awesome French class that I wish I could’ve spent more time with. Je suis vraiment désolé pour cette triste fin…

Here’s to the two boys that I just met in THET110 a matter of weeks ago and call them friends.

Here’s to every time I pet testudo, asking him to wish me good luck before taking off for someplace else around the world.

Here’s to every time I bypassed the American and Maryland flags – wishing, that I was somewhere else in the world. 

Here’s to saying goodbye, in a way that I never imagined, but in a way more meaningful than I could’ve ever envisioned

And here’s to every kid who ever walked towards the Clarice, and turned their heads around out of confusion and curiosity to see me : the girl singing out loud with her off-brand-rose-gold-beats without a care in the world. 

You know… I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to say goodbye to College Park…

 But I think I just did.