I am a dangerously nostalgic person. My freshman fall, I spent half an hour before the Homecoming bonfire talking with my freshman floormate and trippee about how fondly we would look at the night. I have a vivid memory of my friend, sitting next to me on her bed wearing her Dartmouth '13 shirt, saying, "We're going to miss this so much when we graduate." At that point, we had been at Dartmouth for a month and a half.
Almost four years later, I'm embarrassed by how melodramatic I can be, even when I'm right. In distributing moderately good advice, Gardner Davis '13 and I frequently made fun of freshmen. However, I'm pretty jealous of my freshman self, despite her terrible bangs. I have never felt as immersed in the "Dartmouth community" as I did my freshman year. I was in awe of the Dartmouth that was filled with talented, humble, brilliant students. The 100-year-old buildings, a freshman floor that served as an incredibly incestuous family and legendary traditions let me build up nostalgia for a place that became larger than life in my mind. I understood that the College had issues, but was confident in my classmates' and my ability to solve them. Sometimes while sitting in the second floor hall of Rauner with my floormates or listening to the alma mater when walking to Collis for pasta, I would randomly get an ache in my chest from fortune to be at Dartmouth. When my mom came to pick me up for freshman summer, I sobbed.
Sophomore year was different, mostly because I had a half dozen random identity crises. They stemmed from a number of issues that aren't particularly revolutionary running the gambit of rush, figuring out my sexuality, spending the winter living at home and making terrible decisions in my love life. My freshman year, I saw myself as one of the students frolicking on the Green in glossy images in Dartmouth calendars. I was already nostalgic for parts of Dartmouth I hadn't experienced yet, like sophomore summer, and for things I had never experienced, like when people actually built Winter Carnival sculptures. As a history major, I like to look at the past and try to puzzle what it means, piecing together a wider story. My sophomore year, I wasn't really sure where I fit into Dartmouth's story anymore.
I wasn't, and still am not, very good at "doing Dartmouth." I'm terrible at applying for things, and I hate rejection. I didn't apply to write for The Dartmouth until my senior year because I found the application intimidating and assumed I wouldn't get in. I don't really enjoy meeting new people, small talk or big groups and have made most of my friends by lurking in their general vicinity for weeks to months. I'm not good at dating, worse at maintaining a hook up and have been single for my entire Dartmouth career. Most damningly, I'm really bad at pong.
Despite this, my Dartmouth nostalgia has only grown during my senior year. My previously mentioned freshman floormate and trippee and I made a pact that we'd move out of our luxurious sorority housing to live together, surrounded by sophomores in South Fay, our senior spring. We regularly get slammed with bouts of pre-post-Dartmouth nostalgia. However, the parts of Dartmouth I now place unreasonable value on don't fit the image of Dartmouth that existed in my head freshman fall. They are things that remind me of snippets of the last four years that I've spent with people I love completely and have changed who I am as a person. It's not the shiny packaged image of Dartmouth I loved freshman year, but it is tangible and real and makes me truly grateful to have had the opportunity to come here.
Next year, if I come back for Homecoming, I'm sure I'll tear up at the bonfire. However, it will be the hardest to leave the random signs on my running route in Norwich. Sitting in King Arthur Flour for twelve hours every Sunday. Being the proud pledge mama in a sorority that I did not want to join my sophomore fall. Drinking wine and eating Fage yogurt on a couch in London. Doing a circuit in a hurricane. Closing Tri-Kap basement dancing alone to "Call Me Maybe." I'll miss Molly's margs on Mondays, people accepting the weird noises I make in lieu of words and the picture of the naked Asian man holding a cat that's hung on the wall in every room I've lived in since freshman year.
Since I technically wrote an advice column this year, I'll end with a few pieces of advice. Find people, groups and activities that make you feel lucky to be at Dartmouth. Don't take this place or yourself too seriously. Even as you grow increasingly convinced everyone is terrible, keep making new friends. Carve out a little section of Dartmouth for yourself, and remember it fondly when you leave.
