As my coworkers and I gathered around my cubicle on Monday morning, we exchanged our normal pleasantries and regaled one another with tales of mediocre weekends. I just so happened to have spent my weekend with many college friends for our homecoming celebration.
"What's homecoming?" asked my Puerto Rican coworker. It dawned on me.
"Do they not have homecoming in Puerto Rico, Deborah?" I asked. Apparently not!
I paused to think of how best to explain homecoming, especially one as special as my to Furman University.
Seven years ago I first stepped on the campus of Furman University. It was mid-April, approximately two days before I needed to send my response to one of the four schools to which I had been accepted. I still had no clue where I wanted to go.
The weather in Greenville, SC was gorgeous, of course. And if you haven't been to Furman's campus, well, suffice to say it frequently tops lists of the nation's most beautiful campuses - including one published by Forbes.
The sun was shining, the trees were in full bloom, and my little northern mind could barely comprehend it in comparison to the gray drab of a New England April (where there was likely still snow on the ground).
The tour guide was great - she even admitted that the dry campus was actually "damp." The only thing that struck me as odd was the one other boy in our tour group. He was wearing way too much pastel, in my opinion, complete with these hideous loafers and a sweater tied around his shoulders. "Maybe he's gay?" my mom suggested.
Besides the questionably dressed young man, in the end I was easily won over. Four months later my parents and I packed up my teeny Ford Escort and the family mini-van with all my worldly belongings and drove 16 hours down the east coast. I cried when they left me, but was thrilled for my new adventure.
I learned quickly that the boy in my tour group wasn't gay... in fact, his outfit was considered very stylish here in the southeast. And the girls liked to wear lots of pink and green and Jack Rogers. I was a fish out of water at first. I didn't know how long I'd last.
But quickly I found my friends, and myself, and had the best four years of my life. One blog entry is not even close to enough to describe it. I wouldn't change my time at Furman for the world. I discovered who I was, and definitely who I wasn't. I made lifelong friends in my sorority, and learned more academia than I knew my little brain was capable of.
To try and explain the feeling of "coming home" to Furman, of coming back to all of those memories, the precious pasts...I couldn't even begin to describe that appropriately to my coworker. It's called homecoming, but it's like you never left. Friends you haven't seen in a year or more gather together at the old haunts and party as much as our now aged bodies will allow us. We dance around the reality of our lame grown up lives and instead dance on the floors of our old favorite bars. We marvel at how skinny (or how fat) everyone's gotten, ooh and ahh over new babies and engagement rings, and then meet up with the singles and pretend like we're happy that we're still young and free. It's a paradox of joy and nostalgia and we all revel in it.
No, I couldn't begin to explain that type of emotion on a foggy Monday morning.
"It's a celebration where you come back to your alma mater and relive your glory days," was the best description I could muster. But I know that any Furman alumni will know that it's so, so much more than that.
Furman Homecoming Tailgate
Sorority sisters doing the Anchor Salute near our collegiate float.
All for now, more to come.
-A
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