The Last Hurrah

I live in a city that disguises itself as a college town, just a few weeks a year.

College towns, have a very specific feel, an energy – or a lack of – at certain times of the year.  College towns survive because of the University that falls within city limits.  Students often make up a majority of residents, 9 months of the year. The fall and spring is a buzz, the summer is quiet and peaceful without students. 

I've lived in two college towns.  Ames is very much a stereotypical college town.  Of the 50 to 60,000 residents, about half of them are students at Iowa State.  Summers show the barest bones of a ghost town, students in summer sessions decide on a bar based on specials rather than which has a line out the front door. Permanent residents don’t have to wait in line to dine or shop.  It is quiet at night, regardless of where you are laying your head.  Open windows aren't filled with laughter or drunken whooo girl’s screams.  Some people may not mind the absence.    To me, Ames lacks energy in the summer because the students are gone.  My summers spent there left me craving for the fall – even after I had graduated and knew that September would not return friends to campus. 

In comparison, Fort Collins is more of a haven for young, up and comers.  Students fall in love with the foothills, bike trails, outdoor activities, cheap craft beer that is so much better than the Natty Lite that I drank while at ISU.   They position themselves to stay after graduation, even if it means that they pass on a job and settle for grad school.  Because of this, the median age of Fort Collins in the 2010 census was 28.  The college may skew that statistic slightly, but of the 150,000 residents, the college only compromises around 20,000.  Summers in Fort Collins are fantastic – filled with concerts, outdoor festivals, impromptu bike bar crawls, white water tubing on the Poudre, hiking, days and nights grilling up at the Reservoir.  The energy of the city gains momentum, without a clutter of students.  We don’t need them to create the fun, we continue without them. 

Yet, there are certain times of year where it is very obvious that Fort Collins is a college town.  Obvious, in the fact that all students are flooding the streets.  Obviously distinguished as students by their dress, behavior, and where they congregate on street corners – or, more likely, in the middle of the street.  They are out, with a mission.  A mission to enjoy each other, to meet new friends and reconcile with old.  In Old Town (Fort Collins’s downtown area) this controlled chaos happens twice a year.  First, when the students return in the fall.  And then finally, the last weekend of school - dead week.  The last hurrah.

One last hurrah to ruin brain cells before they are needed most during finals weeks and friends scatter for the summer; to the mountains, to travel overseas for study abroad programs, to internships, to return to their parent’s to save money on summer housing. For some, before they are forced to leave and not come back.  One last hurrah before finals and graduation.

I, unknowingly, became part of this bedlam last weekend. 

(Yes, I think that bedlam is the right word to use there.) 

I was right in the middle of it, with my group of girlfriends, fresh off of an afternoon drinking mint julips and making Kentucky Derby predictions.  We were dressed up in dresses and heels, our significant others tapped out due to their own over consumption.  Given the freedom – we took the opportunity to dance.  We headed to Old Town, and headed to a dance club called Bondi. 

As my friend Kathleen so eloquently put in our Girls Night Facebook Page the next day: “Dumb.”

Dumb, but awesome.  One of those nights that I woke up a few short hours after closing the bars down and my legs hurt from dancing so much.  My throat hurt from yelling over the music and laughing so much.  My head hurt from…well… you get the idea.

It felt like I was 21 again.  If CSU’s campus was closer, I could have probably been influenced to jump into a fountain.  I know that the crew of girls I was with would have welcomed the idea, just like my friends in college did.  And we would have gotten away with it.

We maybe didn't realize what we were walking into.  It was a reverse naivety.  I was never one for bars that served as meat markets in college.  I was a dive bar kind of girl.  Walking into Bondi and onto the crowded dance floor made me very happy to be married.  I could rely on one flash of my left hand in the strobe lights to make a boy back off, no questions or persuasion needed.  It made me feel kind of sorry for my cousin Libby who is 21.  The pickup lines are worse than I remember.  And yet, something to witness and laugh at. 

Towards the very end of the night, I had a young man approach me and ask if he could dance with me.  I flashed the ring, explaining that I was married and I didn't think it would be appropriate.  There was a slight hesitation before he practically broke down in tears. 

He shared quickly, “My girlfriend of 2 years broke up with me two months ago, and I’m graduating next week.  This is the first night I was able to make myself go out with friends.  And of course I try to pick up a married woman…”

Given what I had heard coming out of the mouths of boys for the majority of the night, I probably could have assumed this was another pickup line.  I did, until I looked and saw the hurt in his eyes.  My rejection could not have put that deep of an ache in his irises. 

For those of you who haven’t been out and about with me on the town, I have two alter egos when I’ve been drinking.  Mother Hen.  Therapist Katy.  This boy’s eyes were calling out both. 

All I said was “Oh hun,” and rubbed his shoulder.  That’s all it took, and he drunkenly started to open up.  So we stood there and talked.  He talked about his fears, of the finality of both his relationship, of college. 

I remember the feeling of finality of graduation and of those first “real world” experiences.  How scary it was.  The uncertainty.  The questions.  If I would be able to have the opportunity to do what I wanted, professionally?  Would I be able to afford the lifestyle that I enjoyed without scholarship money to support my income?  Would I be able to stay close to my friends, even as we all headed to different states and coasts?  Would I be able to make new friends – just as good and worthwhile as those who I had surrounded myself with in college?  Would I be able to make a difference in the real world like I had on campus?   Was I making the right choices about my future – was it smart of me to wait things out with Kendall?  Was the real world really as cruel and helpless as so many “adults” made it out to be? 

And yet, I knew it wouldn't be cruel and helpless.  It couldn't be.  It would exactly what I made it to be, what I would chose to make it.  That some things may be uncertain, but as long as I made an effort – as long as I gave it my best effort, I could be happy with any and every decision that needed to be made.  I had been preparing for this life.  Now was my chance.  Now I got to live it.

One of my now favorite songs came to me in the summer of 2005, during a time when I was asking these questions and trying to tame the doubts.  That summer I discovered the band The National and their new album Alligator.  It was only a discovery; I enjoyed Alligator and listened to it a few times – but I let myself be taken over by the more upbeat Hot Fuss of The Killers that summer (who didn't !).   It wasn't until a few years ago that I revisited the album on YouTube (I don’t know where my copy is now… lost in my many moves across states I’m sure.  Visit the above link if you want to listen as well). 

I love the entire album, but I especially love The Geese of Beverly Road.  It’s a song that some days I will find myself listening and have the need to hit repeat over and over.  Something about the spirit of the song, the complexity of the off beat, the ability to say “We were here, we were here…”  Some days it fills my heart to where I want to cry. 

It reminds me of the hope that I filled myself with then in 2005, the promise of what the real world would contain.  Of the following few years where I made some dumb decisions along the way but I was able to move beyond.  Dumb decisions aren’t necessarily mistakes.  Uturns exist in life if necessary.  Those were the moments I came from, that I made a decision in fake confidence which was good enough until I could find a direction in which confidence was warranted. 

It reminds me of the craziness that I still have in me, the fact that I can still dance and smile and laugh the same way I did when I was 20.  That the world is still filled with 20-something who contain this fear, hope and promise, and that we owe it to them to help foster that feeling, not destroy it.  That I will never utter the words that it is a cruel and helpless world.

I spent 20 minutes talking this boy, never finding out his name.  After listening to him, I took only a few minutes of our time to share that it was ok to be afraid.  It was also important to remember that he had been preparing for life, and that life has many seasons, that people fill these seasons – and he would find someone else, he would find other friends.  He only needed to be confident now, or at least pretend to be.  And that I had faith that he would make the right decisions, or at least the right “wrong” decisions.  He hugged me – a nice hug.  He didn't even try to cop a feel.  He really did just need a friend, someone who could give him a little bit of confidence in himself…

To move on to the next girl over, a cute blond somebody who was more appropriately his age.  Figures…

On the ride home, I stuck my ear buds in and listened to The Geese of Beverly Road.  It seemed appropriate.  A late night toast to the spirit of those who were experiencing one season’s last hurrah.

To the class of 2013 – this is what I have to share:

Hey love, you’ll get away with it.  You’ll run like you’re awesome, totally genius. You’re the heirs to the glimmering world.

You’re the heirs to the glimmering world.