This is something that I always wanted. I always thought in high school it would be cool to have someone walk me to class or have someone that I could run to and get a hug or kiss from in the middle of the school day. If I ever had a boyfriend in high school, they never went to my school. In college, I still thought that it would be the coolest thing to have lunch with someone or have someone bring you coffee or have one’s apartment you could crash at. And for a very long time, I didn’t have that. I dated someone for a couple of years, but they went to a different college than I did.
When we broke up, I was ready to start over. So I thought that this would be the perfect time for me to concentrate on myself—make friends at my school and put extra time into my work. No sooner did I say that did I meet someone at, you guessed it, my college. Our first date was from 7pm to 3am. Three of my friends and my mom called me to make sure that I was okay. We just couldn’t stop talking and not just about the weather. We talked about life and families and what we wanted and where we came from. After a couple of dates like that, the rest was history.
I stayed at his place, went out with him, met his friends, spent more time in the building he had class in than where I had class. We brought each other coffee and lunch. We would have dates where we would go out, and just as I wanted, I had someone that I could pop over and see whenever I wanted. Everywhere on campus has a memory attached to it—the Starbucks where we would meet or the Chick-Fil-A that we would eat lunch at or the building where we did all of our homework together. Even though we don’t have the same major, he started to rub off on me and how I viewed assignments.
These memories were with me before we even broke up. And once we did, it felt like I was in the Twilight Zone. I was walking around and thinking like a zombie; not because I was sad or upset (things had ended as well as anyone would have expected and we actually agreed to talk again once we took some space to maybe get on the same page with what we wanted), but because it was crazy to me that a parking deck would become so important or that a cross walk would remind me of the time that texting and walking would have killed me if he hadn’t pulled me back. I also had no idea that I would ever want to cry in the library for any reason other than a ton of homework and test anxiety.
No one tells you what it’s like to walk around with this person and these memories still be with you. No one tells you any of that. They just say that it’s nice to have someone to talk to in class and it's even nicer to always have someone to go out with, but you don’t know what it’s like when it’s over. Or maybe it isn’t even over, but they graduated before you—you still have to look at the same trees and the same buildings and you still drink that same coffee.
But even with all that said, I wouldn’t trade any of it for the world. I mean, the relationship was great, but the fact that we went to school together was something that I am more than happy about. It made me be more self-sufficient and it made me learn how to allocate my time better. It also let me grow emotionally because they saw me after class on good days and bad days and I had to voice my emotions and my feelings in person instead of saying “LOL” with a smiley face in a text. You have to tell someone what you want and how you are feeling and the two of you have to trust each other and the best part is that you will get a free coffee and a permanent movie-watching-buddy.
I am lucky because when I walk to class, I smile. Don’t get me wrong, parking in my parking deck still breaks me down, but I smile because I can look at this beautiful campus and think about all the beautiful memories that I will always have with me. And when I come back to visit or I talk to him, we will both know the exact 7-11 where we went after our New Year’s party.
Some people will say that I am being overly optimistic or that I am putting on an act, but I’m not. I would be lying if I said that having a boyfriend on campus was easy after a break up, but I would also be lying if I said that having a boyfriend on campus was easy during the dating. Everything has its ups and its downs and every day is different. Yes, I am upset and sad and all the emotions after a breakup, but I can’t let that stop me. But, sometimes I wish that I could move somewhere else or hurry and graduate so that I don’t have to pass his apartment every day.
