Oxonian Anecdotes: Such Sweet Sorrow, The Conclusion

I had set my alarm for 9:00 a.m. My final paper had no conclusion and had not been edited or even reread, but I was going to have plenty of time for that in the morning. Had I been awake at 9:00 a.m., I would have had plenty of time. Unfortunately, I was not awake at 9:00 a.m. I’m not sure what happened, but I do know that when Johannah woke me up at 11:00 a.m., I was perturbed. How was I going to edit and conclude a paper in less than half an hour? Well, I would have to if I was going to turn it in on time – it was due by noon. I had a moment of panic and then began to work quickly. I read through the fifteen-page discussion of Justin Martyr and Origen’s engagement with Greek philosophy, wrote a four-sentence conclusion and then clicked print. When I ran to the computer lab to take the essay off the printer, I was faced with a hand-written sign that read “Don’t print anything, this printer is out of ink.” “Fantastic!” I said out loud with unmistakable irony. In seconds the consequences of not submitting this paper on time ran through my mind. “They won’t accept it late…it counts for almost my entire seminar grade…my GPA will plummet…I wont graduate with honors in May…I’ll never get a job…I’ll have to live in a box….” My train of thought continued to spiral out of control until, luckily, I ran into my good friends Nick and Ben on the way back up the stairs. They were leaving to turn their papers in. I explained my situation and they offered to help. I emailed Nick the paper and they promised to print it when they arrived, forge my signature, and turn it in. Everything would be fine; crisis averted.

This is how my day began, but as soon as I sent the email, my academic career at Oxford University was finished. I hardly knew what to do with myself. Later that night, over half of the students in the program met at the Turf Tavern. We nearly filled the large beer garden behind the building and the sound of our excited voices was no doubt heard by every patron inside.[1] I don’t think I have ever been that excited about anything in my life. In fact, I know I haven’t. I had doubted myself since the moment I decided to apply for the program, but that was all over. I had met every deadline and had pleased my tutors. I had succeeded. We felt like prisoners sentenced to life in prison and then unexpectedly found innocent and released. Life was new, and freedom was a gift. My body felt as if it was going to float off the rough wooden bench beneath me. We made toast after toast, drinking to the 45,000 words we had written that semester and to the times we thought it would never end.

It was ending, and now that our minds were free, they could not help dwelling on the moments to come: the final moments. I knew that soon my heart would ache for Oxford, and so was determined to make the most of what little time I had left. We went sightseeing around the city for the first time since the essay-writing had begun. It felt like that first week – the excitement, the discovery, but this time I knew the people around me and loved them. I loved them so much that I was conscious of each moment as it slipped away, and it was painful.

We did not sleep during our last night at The Vines. There was no time to sleep. The first to depart left at 2:00 a.m. and another left every hour or so after that. Every time I hugged another person goodbye, I felt as if a piece of my body was being amputated. Some people left greater holes than others. Johannah was scheduled to leave at 4:00 a.m. She spent her last two hours wedged between Ben and me on a small couch watching The Goonies, facing inevitable separation, but refusing to talk about it. When the cab arrived to take her to the airport, I hesitated. I wasn’t ready to lose this piece; it was too close to my heart. We embraced at the door and whispered “I love you” for the last time in person. Tears streamed unchecked down my face despite my attempt at coolness. I was surprised at my own emotion. Few times in my life had I actually shed tears at a goodbye, and when I had, it was usually something I worked at so that I might not look uncaring. I just didn’t get emotional like that, but this time was different. The cab pulled away and I stood in the doorway for as long as it stayed in view.

I almost felt silly, experiencing such heartbreak for a person I had known only a few months, but she was family, they were all family. We had, for the past few days, talked about our bond. We knew it didn’t make sense, but we also knew it was real. “No one will understand,” we said, over and over again. We felt like soldiers who had fought a war together, comrades. We would return home changed people, changed in ways that we would not be able to explain, in ways that it would take years to discover and that only those of us who experienced it would understand. Our friends and family back home, we knew, would ask about Oxford, but would never really care to hear all we had to say, and we would never really be able to say all that we felt.

I was one of the last people to leave The Vines, watching person after person pull their rolling suitcases up the dark, wet driveway to the bus stop, or driving away in a shiny black taxi. By the morning I was exhausted, physically and emotionally. I had cried out everything in me and could do nothing but sit and watch as the last of my dear friends packed a few final things. I watched my entire house walk out of that door, taking their mementoes, their books and their pictures, but leaving an impression on me that will last forever. When I left my room for the last time it was empty, looking just like it did the day I moved in. How absolutely clueless I had been that day, no idea what would happen within those walls, what joy, what pain, what transformation. I am still not sure today all the ways in which I was changed; I may never know, but I do know the people and the places that changed me, and for that I will always be grateful.

[1] Contrary to my initial assumption, a beer garden is not, in fact, a garden in which beer is grown. It is actually a patio-type area outside of a pub, usually with picnic tables and sometimes with umbrellas or tents.