A love letter to Syracuse

I’ve used the word bittersweet before in my writing. It’s an oxymoron—and quite often, a cliché. While most writers tend to hate clichés and avoid them, I tend to tap right in. But I have never used as much as I have in the past three months. 

Bittersweet. Bittersweet. Bittersweet. 

It was the word I chose to go with when people asked me how I felt about graduating. To my family and to my friends. To the families of my friends and the friends of my family. It is all I say to them, but here is what I would say if I sat down and really thought about it.  

The girl I was when I left Boston for Syracuse in 2021 is almost unrecognizable to me at some points. I know her and can still see her in the back of my mind, but she’s so far from who I am right now. I moved five hours across the state of Massachusetts and much of New York. All the way up to the eighth floor of Sadler. But I struggled to leave behind so much at home (If you know, you know.) I didn’t know who I wanted to be, who I wanted to surround myself with, or what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Or even just what I wanted to do for the next four years. I came in wanting to be a writer, but that felt unsteady when I took class lecture too personal when it said that the magazine industry was dying. And who studies a dying industry? 

Spoiler alert: It all worked out—and perfectly, I might add when I switched to Public Relations and Creative Writing. (I still spent my entire life there devoted to writing, but at the very least PR isn’t going anywhere. Sorry to Magazine majors out there.)

So far as someone who looked forward not only to college, but this dream school, this first semester felt far from a dream. It took a few good friends, a few good classes, and maybe even a few good parties to keep me going. That first semester taught me so much about perseverance and to just keep going, even in the dark.  

In a turn of events, I, like many other girls on campus, went through sorority recruitment. After two weeks of trudging myself through the snow in a new dress I bought off the rack of TJ Maxx, I was faced with a decision. I faked a similar confidence to when I applied to Syracuse University or picked a major. I lied and said I wasn’t indecisive and I knew what I wanted. I woke up the next morning to find out I got in somewhere else. A different house. It was different from my original plan, but wasn’t this all. Syracuse just kept teaching me that what you want isn’t always what you need. And sometimes what you need is so much better than you could have even imagine. What I needed was 705 Walnut Ave. I spent the rest of my time there with those girls, sharing a home away from home. Finding myself and falling back in love with life. 

And my life at Syracuse was good from there on out. But I was lucky that my Syracuse experience was not just confined to Upstate New York. The people I socialized with and learned from were from all over.  Going to school there took me to other places I had never been before. I spent weekends on the Jersey Shore with new friends, drinking spritz and trying my first Jersey bagel. I went to musical festivals and saw more live music than ever before with friends from there. It even took me across the Atlantic for the first time in my life.

Last summer, I spent time meeting new friends and seeing new places. I learned more about food and culture and history than I ever had in a short period of time. I spent my days walking down London streets and dining with an Italian family. I’ll think about those days for the rest of my life.

One of those days that remains at the forefront of my memory is when I visited the British Library for a class field trip. After going through the exhibit with classmates, who planned to dip right after, I made my way upstairs. I spent hours by myself with the original copies of art, music and literature. The true joys of life. I think of  those during times like these. I think of being face to face with the original draft of In My Life by the Beatles. And the lyrics:

“There are places I remember

All my life, though some have changed (Ooh, ooh, ooh)

Some forever, not for better

Some have gone and some remain (Ooh, ooh, ooh)

All these places had their moments

With lovers and friends, I still can recall

Some are dead and some are living

In my life, I've loved them all.”

It appeared just like that across an old wrinkled piece of paper. With scribbles and scratches through lines he discarded. I think I won’t try and describe a feeling of looking back on a place better than Paul McCartney and John Lennon. On that messy paper in 1965. 

They say to know someone is to love someone. And I both knew and loved Syracuse deeply. It was as if Syracuse and I had our own secret love language. I knew my life there like an exact science. And there was joy in that comfort and in that routine. 

There were two years in which I lived in my sorority house. When I would wake up from a nap or come home from a long day of classes and I could tell from the music playing in  the room next door that tonight was going to be a good night. Just a faint sound from underneath the door. I could tell from that moment when every single one of my college roommates was ready, but we had a few minutes before heading to the pregame that tonight was going to be a good night. I could tell from the light peering in through my blinds or the number next to the forecast that it would be hard to find a spot in the grass in front of the Hall of Languages. On my walk to class, I’d see everyone soaking in the outdoors as if it hadn’t existed for months. I could tell from a certain song being put on at the pregame that the room was soon energized and everyone was up on their feet. It was not just a repetitive life, just a familiar one. 

It is safe to say I grew a lot through these past four years. I learned the most about love, life, friendship, and heartbreak. I surrounded myself with storytellers and used their inspiration to dive back into my own stories Syracuse has taught me alot and leaving it will now have to teach me to move on. To accept that life doesn't stop and time keeps going.  And if I have learned anything in the last four years, it’s that time moves fast. The routine I knew so well is now no longer mine. 

Years from now, a group of young women, figuring it all out, will sit on Wednesday nights playing cards. They will drink the same beer and sit in the same booths. They will spend their sunny days on the quad and talk out loud about boys in their classes. They will worry about their weight and their situationships and their outfits and their exam on Thursday. They will have similar heartbreaks and dreams to my friends and I. They may even take the same classes with the same professors. Maybe live in the same attic room of my sorority house or that broken-down senior home.

But to truly love something is to want other people to see how special it is. It’s their turn now. And oh how much I want that for those girls.