Was 1997 Really So Long Ago?

Ten years ago, in May of 1997, I officially graduated from Georgetown University. There, I said it. Ten years might not seem like a long time – I go back and forth on that one – but, for someone barely past thirty, it’s a full third of my life. Since I am the sort who considers college to be the period where I really began to find myself, ten years represents the vast majority of my adult life. When I graduated, I was not yet twenty-two years old, I did not have a full-time job, and I was still frantically searching for a place to live. Today, I am thirty-one years old, I have worked at the American Red Cross for nearly nine years, I am a homeowner, and I am a married father of three. The journey that led from then until now actually began in August of 1993, when I first stepped foot on Georgetown’s campus…

Who are we when we finish high school? Most kids are barely eighteen, owners of negligible savings and even less real-world experience. Luckily, when we head off to college, we are thrown into a huge melting pot with thousands of other kids in the exact same situation. In my case, I had no idea who I was, or who I would become, although I was not so aware at the time. I’m sure I thought that everyone I shared the summer of 1993 with back home in Pittsburgh would be with me forever, although, as I have come to learn, that has not been the case. I was a cross country runner with designs on continuing my racing career, a novice metal-lover eager for my next Metallica concert, and a “mathlete” – one of my wife’s favorite words – proud of my calculus knowledge. (It’s okay to use the word “nerd” at this time.) While I was also shy and a bit insecure, I was determined to approach college with an open mind, and so I did.

It’s amazing how much of your college experience is determined by the luck of the draw. At most universities, freshmen are randomly assigned roommates, and I must admit that, all things considered, I lucked out in that department. My roommate and I barely said more than a few words to each other after our freshman year – we traveled in different circles, to say the least – but our year spent living together went rather well. We both got along amiably enough, we respected each other’s space, and we did not have a single argument. The “luck of the draw” comment, however, really extends beyond simple roommates, as the people you likely spend your mornings, evenings, and nights with are the ones who share your hallways, bathrooms, and lounges. I did not realize how true this was until, a few years after graduating from college, it occurred to me that, with a handful of exceptions, every meaningful friendship I made in college involved one of the guys who shared my floor or one of the women who lived one floor above me. What if I had been placed a couple floors lower, or in another building entirely? Where would I be today?

As I passed my fours years in our nation’s capital, I searched aimlessly for a major, only to eventually run from accounting into marketing’s warm embrace. I fell in love for the first time, but I had my heart broken for the first time, too. I began to see old friends, without whom I could not have imagined my life, slowly begin to fade into the background, yet I accepted it as a matter of course. I experienced things I never would have experienced in my hometown, from the political and cultural opportunities that Washington provides to the varied perspectives that my classmates offered. I developed friendships that would span four years on the Hilltop, ones that would carry on to this very day. Most importantly, though, I found myself, even if I did not even realize at the time that I was lost.

When I think of the person I am today, I think of a person who is confident, self-assured, and opinionated. I think of someone who is willing to stand his ground, both for his principles and for those people he holds dear. I think of someone who knows who he is, who knows where he comes from and who knows how he got where he is right now. Georgetown University helped to shape me into that person, as did Washington, DC. The people I met those first few days, people like Eva and Jen, to the people who would be my “roommates” for the next three years – Brad, Bruce, Jerry, John, Jonathan, Josh, Matt, and Steve – helped define my time in college. The women I came to know during these years, people like Denise, Kelly, Maureen, and Nancy, allowed me to form some of the most meaningful relationships I had ever had up until that point. When I left school after four years, the man I had become was made possible by the individuals that had become such an integral part of my life, by the university where I had grown, and by the city that I came to call my home.

I may not always live a short drive from my alma mater, but, for now, I like knowing that I can still take a leisurely drive down the George Washington Parkway to my former home. I can still cruise along the Potomac River, watching the spring blossoms fill the trees the same way they did all those years ago. I can still stroll through my former campus, even though some buildings have risen while others have fallen, and know that it is still a piece of me. I have said before that Washington is my home as much as Pittsburgh ever was, and I can trace the origins of that feeling to my time at Georgetown in the mid-nineties. I walked through those gates for the first time as a seventeen-year-old boy looking to find his way and left as a young man with a sense of purpose and a sense of self. That is why I can say that, looking back ten years later, I would not change a single thing.

Submitted 4/16/07.