Member-only story
After You Left
I live on your campus. And I definitely wish you were here.
My family and I live on one of the thousands of college campuses across the globe that abruptly closed in the wake of the pandemic.
When I say that we live on campus, I mean we literally live in one of the residential colleges that houses hundreds of first and second year student at a private mid-western university. I am accustomed to the sights and sounds of scores of undergraduates living their lives within a few feet of us at all hours of the day and night. Between our lives and theirs is one single doorway, and every time we leave our apartment and enter the dorm it’s a hilarious joy ride.
It’s bananas here. We love it.
We were invited to move into a faculty apartment attached to the “res college” in 2018 for a four-year stint. The university does this to build community between faculty, of which my husband is a member, and students. We’re here to inject a neighborly, civilizing influence in the dorms. We’ve consistently done our part by baking cookies and passing them out during finals, and the students have upheld their end by teaching my kids that college is pretty much just an endless stream of a Capella concerts and publicly dolled out advice on avoiding STD’s.
Of course, this isn’t currently the case. Not right now.