I’ve never wanted to see the future.
When I was 16, I met a glassy eyed man on an Indian street who measured my hand in his and told me I had already met the man I would marry. He informed me I would deliver my first child at 20 and bear only boys, delivering the news with a congratulatory pat on the back.
“Sounds plausible,” I said for the amusement of my mother’s reaction. I was tempted to ask him to take a closer look at my palm, but I parted with a silver coin and continued down the street.
I turned 20 last April, and the fate I was assigned four years ago is now impossible. Rather, things have unfolded in a surprisingly predictable fashion, just as my 16-year-old self would have called it. I had my heart set on Duke, and I got in.
Since settling in Durham, I have done FOCUS, gained the freshman 15, tented, joined a sorority, survived Shooters patrons and a case of mono, declared and switched my major, lugged my belongings from East to West to Central. I’ve mastered the peculiar Duke shuffle. Leaving it all to study abroad in Madrid this Spring is the first misstep I have made.
If there is ever a time to be at Duke, it is the Spring of your junior year. After two years, you have found your place, the people and things that make you happy. If you left in the Fall for the fresh air of the Alps or the condensation of a Parisian night club, you can return to those pleasures. And if you decided to stay in Durham, waiting, you can finally be reunited with those who make your experience complete.
Squinting at the streets of Madrid for the first time after a snow-logged flight with glazed, jet-lagged eyes, I have no trouble believing that I am here—only that I am here now.
When people learn that I am leaving just as half my classmates and some of my best friends are returning, I think some wonder whether it’s because I have not yet found my place. The truth is much the opposite.
My name is new to these pages, but not to this paper. I have spent most of my time in college so far nestled beneath the slanted roofs of 301 Flowers. Issues boasting the University’s biggest headlines yellow beneath plates of glass, looming over me as I write a story that may live on for a few weeks, will probably become lost in the recycling, yet always feels meaningful in the moment. I prefer to work that way. The news happens quickly, too quickly to process, and I am always left hanging.
Especially when I was university editor my sophomore year, I loved the office so much I didn’t usually feel the need to leave—and when I did, it could be jarring. I answered my cell phone, “The Chronicle, This is Julia!” with unsettling frequency.
When I would run into acquaintances who did not write for the paper for the first time in a long while, they would begin the conversation with a perfunctory, “How are you?!” followed by a more earnest, “How’s The Chronicle?”
I usually sidestepped the first query and launched into a breathless response to the second, recalling My Interview with The Bachelor or The Time I Met Robert Redford. I responded that way because it seemed to be what people wanted to hear. But I eventually realized it was also the part of my life I most enjoyed telling.
Sting lyrics and romantic comedies have taught me that the true sign of loving something is knowing when to leave it.
Although I am not fully committed to leaving Duke, I knew I can’t stay without being emphatic in my desire to be here. With time away, I know I will embrace every moment of the year that remains when I return. Limits are strangely beautiful to me.
Duke has made me happier than I could have ever hoped for, but it is a joy I know too well. When I set foot on West Campus for the first time with my father, it was bewitching—we had to squint to see past the golden filament that was falling from the trees. The pollen now makes me sneeze. I see the University—the turrets and the Gothic spires, the distinguished speakers and the students caked in blue paint—with undue clarity. After five semesters on campus, I can see what would have been the sixth unfolding in my mind’s eye; it’s a blurry picture, but it’s outlined by certain beloved yet immovable realities of my life that I would not change. I know that’s why I need to get away.
Julia Love is a Trinity junior. Her column runs every other Wednesday.
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