I know that people tend to exaggerate. They’ll say things like Guardians of the Galaxy was the greatest Marvel movie ever(!!) and then forget about it in a month or so. (That answer’s wrong, by the way. The best Marvel comedy clearly goes to Thor: Ragnarok, but that’s another story).
I know that one of my first HCK articles was about the feeling of having my mind completely blown after my first viewing of Fight Club and knowing that this campus in The Middle of Nowhere, Ohio was where I was meant to be after four years of high school, which I’d rather not get into. I know all of this. The thing is, the Fight Club incident was in October, when everything still felt new and I was only just transitioning into the feeling of Kenyon being like a second home of sorts, sort of like Hogwarts, but instead of going to Hogsmeade on weekends, there’s a Wal-Mart that contains equally weird items that would probably result in Arthur Weasley having a field day.
Now, around four months later, Kenyon is most definitely “my place,” and I have found “my people,” which means that my parents were right when they told me about this idea of “finding your people” when I was younger. Sometimes I don’t always take notice of this, particularly during the last few weeks, when everyone was more or less bogged down with work and the overall atmosphere was one of doom and gloom. I could not have gotten to Friday fast enough, and I probably would have collapsed if not for the occasional comedy clips I would watch on YouTube when feeling particularly overwhelmed, and also for banter sessions at Peirce with my friends over dinner.
Also thanks to cheesecake brownies :)
The thing that kept me going was the joint birthday party for two of my friends that would be going on Friday night. That was a whirlwind of good food, better conversation, and, for some bizarre reason, Africa by Toto. I thought it would end there, but I found myself hanging out with members of the same group the next day, watching comic book movies and cracking jokes.
I will never forget February 18, 2018. I wasn’t expecting to do anything big that day – get some food, get some work done – and I did both – but I also got in touch with the side of me that got its mind completely blown after Fight Club, the side that comes up with ridiculous science fiction and fantasy concepts that might become stories, but might not because of their magnitude. I was helping a friend with a photo shoot, which happened to be set on the playground at Wiggin Street Elementary. As it was a Sunday, there was nobody else there, except for us. I was given the simple instructions of “play on the equipment,” with the occasional instruction for how to position myself.
This wasn’t the one at the school, but close enough
It was wonderful. It was 40 degrees and my fingers were freezing on the cold metal of the climbing structure I was standing on. If anyone had walked in on us, they probably would have asked why on Earth an eighteen-year-old was messing around with a structure clearly meant for kids. To be honest, I probably would have answered with something along the lines of “Who cares?” After two weeks where it was hard to get to sleep because the list of things I knew I had to get done was becoming longer and longer with each day, I think I deserved an hour to not think about anything aside from helping my friend with his photo shoot and thoroughly enjoying myself in the process. I had nothing to worry about, and life was good.
The only issue with that is the fact that I have to go back to being an adult on Monday.