College.

This is kind of cheating, because it’s really two things I miss.  The first is the college experience I didn’t have, but now realize I could have had.  I just wasn’t prepared for it.  13 years of Catholic school combined with my own issues to prevent me from reaching out, from taking chances, from being then something closer to what I am now.

The second is the college experience I did have.  The people who told me, “oh, enjoy high school while you can, it’s the best time of your life!” were incredibly full of shit.  Despite all my regrets about college, though, if they’d said that about my four years in Rochester they would have been right.  There’s so much I’m genuinely nostalgic for, even if it wasn’t nearly what it could have been.

The hardest part came last fall, when for the only time in my graduate school career I had a class on the main campus, where the undergrads are.  And every Wednesday I’d be among them and it was kind of a smack in the face, a moment of “remember how good it was to be somewhere like here, even if you weren’t like them?”  I think, in a way, going back to school was partly an attempt to do college right and appreciate it this time.  Didn’t work, of course.  You can’t go back.