Julia Writes a Love Letter to the Class of 2020 and A College Experience Cut Short

Dear Old Dartmouth,

My Dartmouth people. I know this is not the ending we dreamed of, nor the one we deserved. Something we thought was guaranteed, taken from us in the space of a few days. What a crazy few days it has been–the world was flipped on its head, and the place we have come to call home has turned us away when it seems like the only place it makes sense to be.

I have to be honest, I didn’t always think leaving Dartmouth would make me this sad. In fact, if you had asked me my freshman year if I wanted to come back for spring term I would have happily purchased a one way ticket home. I was deep in the throes of homesickness, wanting nothing but to return to the comfort of my old life in Oakland, California. I felt I had taken a leap of faith, and I had failed. I was ready to give up. How ironic now.

By my sophomore fall, things started to change. Day by day, week by week (okay, not week 5 or 10), term by term. Things started getting better and better. I joined a sorority that made me feel uplifted and free to be me. I made friends I couldn’t get enough of. During my sophomore summer, I lived in 7 West with complete strangers and came out with lifelong friends. And somewhere along the way, among skinny dipping in the Connecticut, streaking down W Wheelock, looking out from the fire tower, “skating” on Occom or Morey, following the football team from city to city, mimosa harbor, dollhouse sundays, moz sticks and potstickers, piling 10 people into cars, hungover 10As, grim 3fb scenes, foco playlist bangers, Dick’s house telling me I’m pregnant when I have a sore throat, Molly’s margs (and bread), darties, big weekends, pong saves, meetings, Dunkin breakfast sammies, friday beers, the pit, the basements, blow up gold bodysuits, semis, formals, flitz’s, PE golf, I-night, Sheryl’s, Circle K, and TDC. I found home in the place I least expected.

But none of these things would mean a single thing without the people I did them with. The people who make it so hard to say goodbye. Man, we had some laughs. The people I met at every stage in the game. From the ones I now know better than I know myself to the people I smile at when I walk into a room. My 20’s. My people. The ones who made it all worth it. The ones who made me myself. “Thank you” doesn’t even begin to cover it. Part of the reason this is all so hard is because I simply can’t imagine my life without you down the hall or across the green. I can’t accept the realities of not being able to bump into you at Hinman, or late night, or the class we both miraculously made it to.

But the truth is, I will never get the “one last time” I envisioned. Collis porch scenes, looking around at the smiling faces at Green Key concerts, strolling around block party bumping into the greatest people on Earth at every turn, 9am champagne drop offs, phrosé, woodstokde, pig stick, Montreal, first swim of the term, one last pudding, walking into my last college class. Maybe not even senior week or walking across the stage at graduation, cap and cane. We may have been gearing up for our best term yet, but no one can say we didn’t have some other best terms along the way. And I know that I will always look around and see your smiling faces–like it’s the first sunny day of spring and we’re all sitting out on the Green for the first time in forever. The people I call home in the place I have come to feel most like myself. The ones who have changed me forever. My little home in the woods. One last lap we’ll never get.

It will never be lost on me that I have to miss out on the last time we all get to share this space in one place together. I will always grieve that loss. But I will have what we made with what we did get forever. And I will know, due to unfair and unfortunate circumstances, we were forced to realize exactly what we had to lose and just how special it all really was.

I may not have always taken the best notes, nor paid the best attention during lectures. But I do know one thing after three and a half years at the college on the hill:

Game’s not over until it’s half cup half cup.

I am forever grateful for the Dartmouth we built together and the people we became while doing it. I love you forever no matter what happens from here.

Love, Jules