I didn’t want to come to Notre Dame.
A year ago today I didn’t. I suppose I also have to include the entire ten years before that when I rejected the idea as well.
Don’t get me wrong: I’ve put in my deposit, chosen my classes, and couldn’t be happier with my choice of school.
So, let me explain.
I know a lot of things, but I don’t know anything as well as what it feels like to grow up just outside of South Bend, in a little suburban area called Granger. Safe, calm, and predictable: three words that sum up my childhood perfectly.
I live 13 minutes away from campus. My iPhone GPS says 21, but traffic moves pretty quickly and speed limits are just suggestions (right?). I grew up with Notre Dame. As an elementary school student, I tried my hand at designing football tickets. As a middle-schooler, I ventured into the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center to witness the explosive power of music, awed and humbled as a young musician. As a high schooler, I attended my first ND football game. I had my first college visit on the Irish green. I overcame my fear of driving over 5 mph on the winding roads as I trained for my driver’s license. I walked out of the Joyce Center three weeks ago as a high school graduate.
This all sounds like something out a fairytale; the college version of the girl who is best friends with the boy next door and then twenty years later ends up falling in love and getting married.
That did happen, it eventually happened. But it wasn’t a love story, at least, not for a long while.
The beginning and the middle of the story are dominated by wanderlust; I yearned to leave the comforts and familiarity of Northern Indiana. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe ND wasn’t a great place or a great school; I had little interest in it solely because I had grown up with it in the background and going to school there would be the complete opposite of my plans.
The end of junior year I had to start deciding which colleges I was applying to. I put down ND almost out of obligation, and didn’t think too much of it. I had applied to one of the summer Leadership Seminars on a whim after receiving an email from my counselor and was accepted into the Arts and Social Change Seminar. Part of me hoped that Leadership would show me a side of ND I wasn’t aware of. I spent only 10 days on campus for my Leadership seminar, where I discussed the modern implications of monuments, did yoga in the morning before class, and debated the effectiveness of the written word in facilitating social change, all while also making some of my best friends.
Before I continue, you may want to get some wine to go with all this cheese that is to come. After 10 days, 13 minutes away from campus might as well have been 13 hours. The thing about Notre Dame is that it can be hard to understand looking from the outside. Before my seminar, when ND was just a school that was too close to home, I avoided the thought of attending like I would the plague.
Afterwards, it was different. Maybe it was different because it’s sad when people leave, people that you have considered to be some of your dearest friends, people that you have had in your life for only 10 short days. Maybe it was sad because even though you were lucky enough to live just 13 minutes away from one of the most beautiful places in the country, it wasn’t your home, not yet.
I never thought it was possible that a 13 minute distance could be significant. When I was growing up the only thing I wanted was to leave. Now that I’ve grown up, I’m willing to stay, because when you understand ND, and the atmosphere, and the people, you’ll always be itching to go back.
My love story is a little different than the boy next door scenario. I was the girl who grew up with the boy next door, had some of the same classes, and didn’t pay much attention to him because he was so familiar. And then, after moving away and coming back, I realize that everything is the same but everything is also different, because that boy isn’t a little boy anymore and I’m not a little girl. We fall in love, but it’s unexpected, at least for the girl.
I didn’t want to come to Notre Dame, but that was a year ago today.
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Images: 1, 2, 3 provided by author.