When the Romance Fades: Reflections on Half of a Sophomore Year

I forgot how nice it is to close a door and have it actually mean, a closed door.

It’s a small gift I’ve taken for granted– the ability to go into my room at home, plug in my mini Christmas tree, swaddle myself in blankets and be alone without a knock on the door of a friend popping in for homework help or to give me a hug.

Don’t get me wrong, I love living in a dorm. It’s the best community I’ve ever had and I wouldn’t trade it. But ahh…to sit and type in a sleepy house? Now, that’s the life.

And as I sit and type, I realize I’m experiencing something I haven’t in a very long time: rest.         
It has been months since I let myself breathe. Whenever I had a “break”, I filled it with socializing. Any spare minute was spent listening to or reading someone’s else’s thoughts, to the point where I had neglected my own.

And looking back on my first semester of sophomore year, man, do I have a lot of thoughts. About a lot of things. 

The joy I felt when my classmates started moving back in after spending three lonely months on an empty campus selling Diet Coke to 2,000 Korean conference students. 

The A-Quad friendship, turned almost relationship, turned ugly, turned back to friendship that put my heart through the wringer. 

The “Mom what am I supposed to do with my life” phone calls and the wise counsel from a plethora of faculty.

 The times I wanted to be a teacher, an anthropologist, a writer, a Spanish professor- all varying by the day, of course, including the day I wanted to transfer schools to pursue songwriting (just one day, don’t worry). 

The strange diagnoses, the embarrassing Saga encounters.

 The day I found out I was going to spend the upcoming summer backpacking through Spain.

And in the background, the scenery painted with logos and memories and unofficial slogans, has been my beloved Wheaton.

I got over my “that would never happen to me, I LOVE Wheaton!” stage. Truth be told, I am no longer in the Honeymoon phase. Sometimes I close my door on Open Floor nights, and even Saga has started to taste repetitive. There’s only so much Broccoli Supreme one can eat before it starts to taste like Broccoli Average.

Sometimes I want to watch Netflix instead of going to a meeting, or skip chapel just because I can.

And at first, I felt disappointed in myself.
            Actually, I felt disloyal. Ashamed.

My whole life, I had dreamt of going to Wheaton. Applying was a no-brainer. I would run home from school every day and check the mailbox with baited breath. The day I got the acceptance letter, I wept when I saw the first letters of “Welcome”, before I had even finished opening the envelope.

I floated through freshman year on cloud 9. I went to every event that I could possibly fit into my 19-hour schedule. I only skipped chapel when I was needed somewhere else, for some other responsibility I saw as nothing short of a “blessing”. Even my homework was fun. I vividly remember calling my mom after my first test during orientation week and saying, “Mom, where am I?! They actually PRAYED before the test!” 

            Little Wheaton rocked my little world and I was completely in love.

Then I got back sophomore year, and it didn’t take long to realize that the relationship had changed. My floor was inhabited by over 20 new residents and the people who should have lived there were spread out all over campus. My friends all had cars and Friday nights were no longer confined to squeezing into a 12x17 room to watch a dumb comedy the boys had picked out. I was too tired at the end of my fourteen hour days to even think about socializing, so going to extra presentations was definitely out of the question.

            My friends were starting to get jaded, I knew. But I decided to resist the urge to settle into normalcy. I didn’t want the magic to wear off. After all, this was the college that God had worked miracles in providing for me to attend. This was the college that time and time again it had been so clear to me that I was called to.

            But eventually, I couldn’t fight it. I found myself making cynical comments, complaining about how much reading I had to do, skipping Bro-sis dinner to eat with my fellow ditching sophomore friends (let’s face it, sometimes you don’t want to make small talk with that guy who’s apparently on your brother floor but you’re pretty sure you’ve never seen).

            Was I falling out of love with Wheaton? Is that even biblical?

What kind of a driven, “For Christ and His Kingdom” student was I if I let that magic die?

A reasonable student, that’s what.

            Freshman year was great, 100%. I was challenged and encouraged in so many ways. I’m sure that every year for the rest of my life, I will look back and tell stories of freshman year. It was Christmas morning every day. I never outgrew the excitement of talking to a new boy (a Christian boy!) or waking up to my floor haphazardly decorated by the brothers, or sitting at Los, munching on chips and salsa listening to hilarious friends tell hilarious stories.

            And that was good for its season. “Freshman Year Magic”, to give it a name, is a very good thing. I believe that getting wrapped up in the joy of being a freshly made Wheatie helped me develop a greater capacity for excitement and thankfulness.

But the mellowness that has accompanied sophomore year is not of a lesser love. It’s a shift in perspective. Like the day we sat huddled around a laptop, waiting in heavy silence for the Michael Brown verdict to be released. With the collective exhale and the tears of my friend, I realized wow, this is something happening outside of the Wheaton bubble that I actually want to be a part of.

The bubble has its uses. It has kept me safe from the demons of my PTSD, has provided people who nurture me in a way unique to these kinds of campuses. But any normal bubble must pop, and how beautiful the glory of God can be in that often messy event.

This semester, I have begun to realize that my love for Wheaton isn't expressed through the activities I do, the number of Facebook posts I write, or the quantity of spiritual conversations I have that contain the sentence "I'm just so blessed to be at Wheaton". 

Am I blessed? Completely. Let's be real, at what other school would the President stand up in front of the entire student body during the first month and tell the story of how he fought depression and didn't see any purpose in living the past year?

My love for Wheaton may not be as explicit, but I can only pray that it is expressed in the ways that I carry out my year. I want to view relationships, conversations, arguments, times of reflection and times of action as ways that I so clearly saw the grace of God. And recognize how incredible it is that I am at a place where I can do those things freely. 

So no, Wheaton is no longer a shining entity that can do no wrong. I see the brokenness, I have experienced the hurt of accusations and misunderstandings and plain old hate. 

But God has worked through it in ways that are life-giving. 

It may be broken, old, and messy, but it's my school. It was my school freshman year, and it still is, even when I feel like nothing more than a jaded sophomore. I am known here, I belong here, I have a family of believers that I get to do life with in all of its often ugly glory. 

And that, my friends, is true love. 

3East

Blessings are people
43 messed up, glorious people
Living behind identical doors
Every story, type of life
Represented
Filled with pain, joy, both
The table we set is beautiful.
Gorgeous light of Christ
Reflected in 43 faces
Laughter and hugs and "We're such girls!"
I'm not sure why they stuck us here
Thin plywood walls a few feet between
Hair in the sinks and wrapped around my toes
Pounding running feet and sleepy-eyed smiles
No, I'm not quite sure why
But I'm glad they did.