The thing about starting over is that it feels like uprooting the past—like leaving behind fragments of everything you once knew, just to stand before a canvas that’s untouched, a map that’s uncharted.
It’s only been four years, yet there are so many details about my time at Brown that I’m already starting to forget. In 10, 20, 30 years, what will I still hold on to?
To my future self, I hope this capsule of memories reminds you of all of the people, places, and experiences that you once held so dear. I hope you have found plenty more of it wherever you are now. I hope you know that Providence will always be home.
I hope you remember the chaos and exhilaration of shopping period—spontaneously walking in on lectures you’d only just discovered, running into people you hadn’t seen in ages, debriefing at the end of the day to gush about the coolest classes everyone had found.
I hope you remember skipping and dancing to “Perfect Places” by Lorde down Brown Street at 1 a.m. together because there were no parents or teachers or curfews to tell you otherwise. So this is freedom. But don’t worry, you spent a fair amount of time in the SciLi too, even if you needed to “power nap” before you started. Remember when you were struck with that mysterious sickness while working in the Hay? Immediately afterwards, you were bedridden on her twin XL as you took the MATH0100 midterm, asynchronously of course.
Dance shows, sports games, music performances, thesis presentations, marathons. You attended each and every one. You cheered their names from the top of your lungs, clapped as loud as you could, and beamed with pride. Your heart stretched a little wider to make room for their joy, their accomplishments, and their passions.
You learned to forgo the formalities of “my brother” or “my sister,” and addressed each other’s siblings in conversation by their first names. It felt strange at first—to introduce your home life to new people this way, when for so long, these had been basic facts that didn't need explanation. You welcomed them home for Thanksgiving because their own homes were mountains and rivers and oceans away. Your mom was overjoyed to have three more daughters to call her own. She knew that one studied IAPA, one studied engineering, and one studied comp bio. She’d ask about them regularly and brought them food when she visited. They called her “East Coast mom,” “American mom” (she’s not American), “second mom.”
Remember your first visit to Steinert? How you rediscovered the art of piano, how it reached you somewhere that was both healing and rejuvenating. You trusted in muscle memory to guide you, but it was sharing the beauty with others that brought you back completely, to the Yamaha in your childhood home. Remember when you heard her sing and harmonize with the piano for the first time in Alumnae Hall? You were instantly entranced. Two years later, you went back to Alumnae again after she returned from her semester abroad, but this time you were in a private room upstairs where the lights were off and the area felt more enclosed. You had the whole space to yourselves. She pulled out the sheet music on her phone and asked you to record her on yours. Her angelic voice cut through the silence—the piano accompaniment brightened the room with delicate, graceful notes. She told you that you could delete the clips from your camera roll after you AirDropped them to her. But you never did. I hope you keep them forever.
I hope there’s a balcony on the house you live in now. And a nook for a library corner like you used to all dream about together. A long porch too, but not a wraparound because that would leave you too exposed. Remember the blue house on the corner of Angell and Brook where you had your end-of-year Chinese class potluck? Remember sitting on the balcony in a circle (more like an amalgamated mass of bodies attempting to make a circle), sharing your rose-bud-thorns? A senior at the time reflected on her quiet sorrow as the final weeks before graduation drew near, and old memories seemed to resurface in every corner of campus. At the time, all of that felt so distant. At the time, you said you were glad to have taken the class and to have met so many new people. Even though you knew each other before the class, you always felt at ease meeting new people when she was there. I hope you have someone like her—a reassuring presence, a familiar face to find in the crowd.
If you have friendly neighbors, I hope you’ll bring them Jeni’s ice cream in exchange for Jersey bagels. I hope you’ll memorize the passcode to her apartment and welcome yourself inside freely. I hope that when the new season of Severance comes out, you’ll still be watching. You’ll have Chipotle too, more out of habit than preference. I hope that every Halloween, you’ll remember the time you went to the Halfway to Halloween Market together in the middle of April. I hope you still have impromptu car chats that extend into late hours instead of going inside. Like you used to do in front of Hegeman, Chen, Williams, and Preston—when everyone was a neighbor to you.
I know they won’t be strangers, but I hope they’re more than someone you sporadically FaceTime to catch up. I hope you go to T.J. Maxx together, not with a particular checklist in mind, but simply to cure boredom. I hope you take long walks and stumble upon playgrounds and drive around aimlessly, simply to have company. But hopefully you don’t amass parking tickets as often anymore. I hope she’ll always be one door away for you to ramble and pour out your thoughts to until you bring up the same topic over and over, until it’s been analyzed from every angle. Or until a new thread unravels it all once again. I hope you have a communal supply of jeans and dresses and shoes and jewelry that flow in and out of each other’s possession. You’ll leave the door open and let them rummage in your room for the drying rack or eye drop solution or dumbbells. Maybe you’ll make a megabed and watch The Great British Baking Show: Holidays even though they’ll both fall asleep 10 minutes in. I hope you can sit in silence and nap on the couch and do nothing together. I hope the new people learn this language too—that they come to read stillness not as neglect or distance, but as a sign of closeness and comfort. And I hope they don’t need translation.
I hope you still wear the sweater you bought from the F@B fair. I hope it’s perfect weather for napping on the Main Green. I hope you remember the school spirit that comes out on April 20. I hope you’re dancing and singing in the rain to Ethel Cain’s “American Teenager,” and the mosh pit turns into a mudslide. A drizzle turns into a downpour as the rain comes down harder and harder until you can’t make out the faces in front of you. But you don’t need to see to feel the love.
