The Miami Student Magazine Volume XIV

THEGreat AmericanRoadTrip

WrittenbyDevin Ankeney -page34

Editor-in-Chief

Claire

Managing Editor

Jessica Opfer

Art Directors

Erin McGovern

Hannah Potts

Assistant Editors

Sam Norton, Makayla Parker, Stella Powers, Taylor Powers, Elizabeth Smith, Maya Svec

Copy Editors

Jack Schmelzinger

Taylor Stumbaugh

Art Staff

Caitlin Dominski, Macey

Chamberlin, Katie Preston, Erin Morgan

Business

Devin Ankeney

Head of Student Media

Sean Scott

Faculty

James Tobin

Business

Sacha Bellman

Letter from the Editor

Dear Reader,

Welcome – or welcome back – to The Miami Student Magazine for the spring 2024 edition of our publication.

How are you? If you’re like me, that question feels a bit loaded these days. With graduation looming ever closer, I’ve found myself waffling between jittery excitement and end-of-days dread. When introducing the fall issue, I wrote that those stories felt like “what it means to be a student at Miami University.” They were fast-paced, glittery and downright exciting (colloquially, I referred to it as the “sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll” issue).

Unfortunately, you won’t be finding much of that this time around.

If last fall’s issue felt like a reminder of what it means to be a student here, this one feels like a look at life beyond Miami. With introspection and grace, this collection of stories shows what it feels like to move on and move forward. Above all, these are stories about learning: learning how to build a community, how to take control of your life and how to let go – even when doing so feels impossible.

For our fourteenth issue, Devin Ankeney takes us on “The great American road trip,” a winding look at five friends and their journey to the Grand Canyon. Amidst picturesque landscapes and tacky gift shops, Ankeney grapples with the hold consumerism has on America’s natural landmarks, as well as their own opaque future.

I would be remiss if I didn’t thank the wealth of people responsible for getting this magazine into your hands. Regardless of your contribution, this finished product could not have been achieved without you and I am so grateful to everyone who dedicated their time and effort to this issue.

To my wonderful editorial team: Managing Editor Jessica Opfer and Assistant Editors Sam Norton, Makayla Parker, Stella Powers, Taylor Powers, Elizabeth Smith and Maya Svec. The commitment and attention you have shown each of these stories does not go unnoticed, and I am so grateful for all of your hard work.

To our art directors, Erin McGovern and Hannah Potts, as well as the entire design team: your creativity and talent never fails to blow me away, and I have loved watching you bring this issue to life.

Finally, I want to extend a personal thank you to our faculty advisor, James Tobin. I’m not sure if I would have a single byline without your encouragement, and I am so grateful to your continued support throughout my four years at Miami. Your teaching and influence has made me a better editor, writer and person.

The support I have felt throughout my year in this role is hard to put into words. The journalism community at Miami is so special, and it’s hard to imagine leaving it this May. Sharing this work with so many people close to my heart has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.

I have loved being a part of this magazine. Thank you thank you thank you, TMSM.

Enjoy Issue XIV!

Claire Lordan Editor-in-Chief

At TMSM, we are constantly striving to learn and grow, so your feedback is both welcomed, appreciated and encouraged. Please do not hesitate to reach out to the email provided below.

CLAIRE LORDAN

JESSICA OPFER

ERIN MCGOVERN

HANNAH POTTS

JACK SCHMELZINGER

MACEY CHAMBERLIN

EVAN STEFANIK

KATIE PRESTON

CAITLIN DOMINSKI

TAYLOR STUMBAUGH

ERIN MORGAN

WES PAYNE

SOPHIE MALLOY

RILEY PETERS

SAM NORTON

LUKE MACY

STELLA POWERS

TAYLOR POWERS

LYNDSEY CARTER

MAKAYLA PARKER

MAYA SVEC

ELIZABETH SMITH

DEVIN ANKENEY

Design by Caitlin Dominski

Photos courtesy of MU Rock Climbing Club

As I descended the stairs of the Miami University Rec Center, my ears were filled with what can only be described as lively chatter. I reached the bottom and turned the corner as the smell of sweat and chalk hit my nose. I had arrived at the rock wall.

It’s 8:30 p.m. on a Wednesday. The MU Rock Climbing Club has its weekly two-hour wall rental and the atmosphere feels like a party.

Dozens of climbers crowded the area between the gym, basketball courts and Outdoor Pursuit Center (OPC). Some stood against the concrete walls, catching their breath and conversing with other climbers. Some laid sprawled on the thick mats, staring up at the route that had deceived them. Some looked at the rock wall and made seemingly random hand movements, covered in chalk and talking to themselves.

A few were off the ground, scrambling and contorting their bodies across the angles and colored holds making up the wall. Some were 5 feet high, others 30 feet. Above all, I heard a constant stream of conversation, encouragement and sometimes shouts to those climbing.

“There’s a foothold above your right knee!”

“Nice. Nice. Keep going.”

“You just gotta jam your finger in there.”

“Yeah, my upper body is completely cooked.”

Everywhere I looked there was excitement, there was movement. It’s hard not to be drawn into the buzz, the feeling that seemed to flow from this space.

I spotted a friend from my beginner’s rock climbing class trying a route he hadn’t finished yet. He encouraged me to give it a go. I shook off my bookbag, put down my pen and notepad and set myself up on the starting holds. As I made my first move, I immediately slipped and fell. Looks like Vans don’t make great climbing shoes.

We laughed as I quickly got off the mat to let someone else attempt the route. We laughed again when they got it on the first try.

The air of excitement and fun was palpable as I gazed around the room of climbers, each coming to tackle their own goals on the wall, but each bonded by the shared experience and belonging that emanated from this community.

“We have a great facility compared to other colleges,” Jacob Meyer, a senior architecture major and president of the climbing club, said. “I think it’s one of the best in the area.”

Climbing exploded in popularity after indoor climbing gyms started popping up in the 90’s, drawing in climbers of all ages and skill levels. Miami’s wall is no different, with beginners and seasoned climbers alike taking advantage of it.

“One of the cool things about Miami's wall is that we do have so many people who are brand new to the sport,” Bridget Woods, an outdoor instructor at the OPC who teaches climbing classes, said. “You know, it's one of those things you get to try with college.”

For those who want to get into climbing but don’t know where to start, Miami offers a Beginning Rock Climbing Class through the OPC, SLM 150C, which is open to those of all skill levels. The class covers basic information such as different climbing movements, climbing vocabulary, how to improve climbing technique and offers plenty of opportunities for students to climb on the wall during class.

Woods enjoys having the opportunity to introduce students to a new sport and help them improve their confidence and ability on the wall. She likes to convey to her students that climbing is unique in the way that it combines flexibility, strength and problem-solving to create an entirely different kind of challenge than most are used to.

Beyond the beginners class, there is an intermediate level class that allows students with some climbing experience to enhance their skills and learn new methods of climbing.

There are very few rules to climbing, especially at Miami, where only close-toed shoes are required to climb. The smaller bouldering wall is available at all times the rec is open, and when the main wall is open students can rent harnesses and climbing shoes for only a few dollars. Those passionate about climbing at Miami push to promote the accessibility of the wall.

Liza Ida, a junior emerging technology in business and design major, works at the climbing desk and sets routes on the wall. Setting routes involves changing the colored holds on portions of the wall, creating new paths for climbers to reach the top. Recently the staff at the wall have been encouraged to set more routes that appeal to beginners, hoping to bring in new climbers and encourage them to continue coming back to try new climbs.

Miami’s rock wall has been around since the new rec building was built in 1994 for $25 million. Since then, the wall has been transformed. It's been repainted, resurfaced for better grip and expanded to accommodate more climbers. The wall is used by the OPC for college classes and youth clinics, as well as countless students.

“I really loved the goal of climbing and how encouraging everyone is,” Ida said. “That’s what drew me in.”

Ida quickly built relationships with other climbers at the wall. She believes that the shared goals of completing a climb and trying new routes bring people together and sees that friendliness reflected in her conversations with other climbers.

“I love coming to the wall,” Ida said. “[It’s nice] to have someone to be genuine with and just have a conversation.”

Despite the influx of new people that come and go from the wall, dedicated climbers at Miami have created a tight-knit community. The climbing club welcomes those of all skill levels to join, and if you’ve been to the wall you know how much encouragement new climbers receive.

Meyer, who started climbing as a first-year at Miami, has seen how important that support and sense of belonging is from the start. Now a senior graduating in May, he makes a point to build relationships with the younger climbers, hoping to continue the sense of community he found so welcoming four years ago.

“As president, I feel like I’m leading a new legacy,” Meyer said. “I want to pass on what I’ve learned and gained from climbing.”

The climbing club also holds a climbing competition once a semester. This event is open to anyone, even

students from other universities. Before the competition, the entire wall is changed and new routes are set, which are numbered based on their difficulty. Climbers who finish the hardest routes are given prizes, from stickers and rope belts to brand-new chalk bags and backpacks.

Outside of competitive events, the climbing club also takes trips to outdoor climbing destinations. The club will often go multiple times a semester to Red River Gorge in Kentucky, which is revered in the national and international climbing community as one of the best climbing destinations in the world.

Located about three hours away from campus within the Daniel Boone National Forest, hundreds of sandstone cliffs with thousands of completed routes offer ample opportunities for climbing. There is a wide range of difficulties across the routes, from beginnerfriendly to the more experienced. It is extremely popular in the fall and spring seasons and is known for its sense of community centered around the famous pizza spot, Miguel’s Pizza.

Meyer’s first experience with climbing at Miami was on a trip to New River Gorge, located in West Virginia, with the climbing club in the fall of 2020. He enjoys getting outside of the gym and spending time climbing in nature with friends on these trips.

Spending an entire weekend outside comes with its challenges, but most climbers on the trip choose to embrace a lifestyle quite different than student life for a few days, from cooking food over a campfire to sleeping in a hammock under the stars.

“It's kind of ‘dirt baggy.’ Some people are like, 'oh, it's raining,' and I'm like: 'alright, wear a rain jacket, get muddy,'” Meyer said, laughing.

Between trips, competitions and a familiar culture of belonging, the climbing club has given Miami students of all ages and climbing experience a community to count on, something that Meyer sees as the most important aspect of the club.

“I've had people telling me, like a bunch of like sophomores and freshmen that are starting to come on, and they're like, ‘yeah, climbing club is … the best thing on campus,’” Meyer said. “Just those comments really keep me going.”

No matter where they are, rock climbers at Miami have found a community like no other. They have found a place to push themselves mentally and physically, but also one that embraces their mistakes. Between the encouragement from fellow climbers to try that tough move or the affability of conversations at the wall, they have found something captivating about the sport.

“People love climbing so much that they want to show it to other people,” Ida said. “I love seeing people try new things.”

Climbers at Miami embrace the idea of simply “giving it a go.” Whether that’s pushing themselves out of their comfort zone, encouraging a beginner or overcoming fear dozens of feet off the ground, they find ways to make the most of their experience. Woods has seen that within the Miami climbing community, no matter the outcome of a climb, they always manage to see the good.

“Give it a try, and whatever comes of it is an accomplishment,” Woods said. S

Design by Erin Morgan

For as long as I can remember you have been right by my side. Tucked beside me in bed at night, seated next to me at the dinner table, walking alongside me wherever I go. Even when I want to spend time alone, you stay with me, never letting me go.

I remember the first time I met you. I was five years old and it was a humid Saturday in late summer. The exact date was Aug. 18, 2007, the day my older sister Caroline lost her battle with cancer. I felt a tightness in my small chest and a deep heaviness in my heart that no child should ever have to comprehend. Those feelings lingered inside me and still do to this day.

From then on you ruled the decisions I made in my life. Throughout elementary and middle school you came to class with me. You intertwined yourself into my friendships. You broke me apart and tore me down each day, forcing me to rebuild myself every morning.

You exhausted me.

During high school, your presence in my life reached new levels. You influenced every choice I made. Every answer on every test. Every plan. Every tryout. Every word I spoke.

Your impact on me peaked my junior year of high school. I was in love for the first time and my boyfriend at the time had just gone off to college, leaving me behind. He was my best friend, and seeing him go through such a massive life change while I was stuck in high school, a place I struggled so hard to feel seen in, left me more anxious than ever.

For the first few months of that year, I cried every day. I sat and ate lunch in the school counselor's office, one of the only places I felt comfortable. I could barely eat. I lost interest in hobbies and lost touch with the few friends I had. My parents didn’t know what to do, and despite taking medication and going to therapy you continued to fester inside of me like an infectious disease trying to kill me from the inside out.

Why do you have such a strong hold on me?

All I wanted was to escape the confines of you and live the life I had always wanted, free from your selfish reign that sucked all the light and energy out of me.

I knew that within myself, I had the power to reframe my relationship.

I knew that the hardships of my life, from losing my sister to overcoming my battle with depression, had taught me strength and perseverance. I knew I could still manage to go out into the world and try my best to make a difference, even when it felt impossible. I had seen glimpses of what my life could be like when you didn’t have power over me, and I realized our relationship did not have to be a toxic one. I thought that if I could turn that pit you put in my stomach into a positive force, you might push me to say yes to things that scared me.

So that’s what I did.

As high school ended, I wanted to leave you in the past. The last four years of my life had been insufferable because of you and I was not going to let you ruin my four years of college.

The summer between my senior year of high school and my first year of college, I made a difficult but life-changing decision: I chose to not let you ruin me anymore.

Instead, I let you drive me toward the life I had always wanted. Rather than letting you scare me

away from pursuing my goals, I grabbed you by the reins and leveraged you to propel me forward.

Because of you, “yes” is my new favorite word.

Because of you, despite not knowing anyone else in my program, I spent four months studying abroad in Luxembourg, an experience that would become the most transformative of my life. I did things you would have never let me do before. I went on a solo trip to Germany to attend a concert all by myself.

So many people told me they would never be able to go on a trip like that by themselves, but because of you, I proved that I could do it. You made me feel empowered.

Because of you, my best friend and I took a spontaneous day trip to Disney World this March. We flew out of Cincinnati at 5 a.m., hopped to three Disney parks from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., and flew home at 11 p.m. that same day.

Everyone said we were crazy. But l have found that life is more fun when I say “yes” to doing unconventional things.

Because of you, I decided to say yes to the guy who asked me to lunch while I was in Boston. One “yes” to what I didn’t realize was a date led me to my first boyfriend in five years. If I hadn’t said yes, I never would’ve walked around the city with him. I wouldn’t have let my walls down to bring such a positive person into my life.

Anxiety, if it weren’t for this shift in our relationship dynamic, I would have missed out on so many lifechanging experiences.

My relationship with you is the reason I have more confidence in who I am. Instead of hating you, I have learned to love you for helping me become the best, most authentic version of myself.

Through all the twists and turns in our relationship, I hope I can inspire others who know you to try and alter their relationship with you, too.

Instead of spending their energy hating you, like I once did, my hope for them is to have the courage within themselves to embrace you as a positive force. A force that helps them ask for the job they have always wanted. A force that helps them tell their crush how they feel. A force that helps them stand up for what they believe in even when people tell them it’s wrong.

Anxiety, I know you never wanted our relationship to be this way.

But this is my life. Not yours.

And I am in control of living it the way I want to. S

GOING ALL IN THE WINS AND LOSSES OF COLLEGE GAMBLING

By Evan Stefanik

Design by Macey Chamberlin

In college towns, students and residents are always looking for fun.

Some find it in the camaraderie of friends and strangers through gambling, risking their livelihoods for a thrill. In Oxford, the Newgate Poker Club feeds that interest.

Newgate Poker Club invites players of all experience levels to gamble until 3 a.m. every day of the week. The club has rebranded the usual casino experience by excluding its staff from gambling, allowing players to determine their own rules. Confident regulars, some of whom travel from out of town in expensive cars, load the lush green roundtable room of Newgate for their favorite nights.

But if players bet too highly on their chances and skill, they can lose more than just their money.

Gambling can include activities like poker, video gaming and sports betting. Sports betting continues to grow more popular each year, increasing its wealth by 75% annually, according to a report by Visual Capitalist. Since Ohio legalized sports betting in January 2023, college students in Oxford have begun taking their shot at winning.

Senior finance and marketing double major Matthew Duffy is active on the sports betting platforms DraftKings and FanDuel each week of the NFL season. So far, his profit has reached over $1,000 after consistent wins. He started betting in high school and takes pride in his earnings today from his vast knowledge of sports. But he rarely strays from sports betting.

“It’s all chance and I’m not into that,” Duffy said. “You can’t win everything and it can become a huge problem for some people. It might be more than just fun for them.”

Keegan Alvis, a junior electrical engineering major, won $500 on sports bets before quickly losing that money - and more. To make his payoff from sports betting, Alvis gathers his buddies a few times a week to watch games and strategize parlays, which combine multiple selections into a single bet.

“It’s really just throwing down the money on parlays. You’re taking a chance on either team to win,” Alvis said. “If one of those things doesn't hit, the whole parlay loses, so then you lose your

But if players bet too highly on their chances and skill, they can lose more than just their money.

Alvis felt the gambling urge his first year at Miami. Before turning 21 – the eligible age to use legal gambling apps – he made five parlays a day in his older friends’ books. Now, he adds $20 buy-ins at weekly poker rounds with his roommates.

“I wouldn’t go out of my way to bring my gambling up to people that don’t bet,” Alvis said. “My friends and I are usually active, but I try to stay away from doing it every day of the week.”

Alvis paused his sports betting at the end of his sophomore year to wait for the big books. With some moderation, Alvis figured out how to stake other players and pay them back efficiently.

For younger college students, their exposure to gambling while underage often leads them right to the thrill when they turn 21. Gambling addiction expert Jody Bechtold says this is a dangerous position for students to be in.

“The brain isn’t fully developed until 25 years old, so they’re more vulnerable,” Bechtold said. “Impulsivity and decision-making is the last thing to develop in the prefrontal cortex, so they don’t know how to stop it or regulate it. It asks you to behave in a way that your brain isn’t fully capable of yet.”

Bechtold works with gambling addiction patients every day. As a clinician at Miami’s Institute for Responsible Gaming, Lotteries and Sport, she plans on building educational programs about gambling through the school of social work.

In her practice, Bechtold hears stories from parents of 18-year-old students who have succumbed to gambling’s excessive advertising and peer pressure.

“It’s so normalized before somebody even gets into college,” Bechtold said. “There’s a whole generation coming in that’s not around their parents, who can’t do much, and at the university, not many are advocates on campus because no one’s talking about it. It's a real setup.”

“It’s all chance and I’m not into that,” Duffy said.

“You can’t win everything and it can become a huge problem for some people. It might be more than just fun for them.”

While some manage to gamble safely and just for fun, Bechtold says that many others do it to cope with trauma, mental health issues, grief and a lack of fitting in. Regardless of why people choose to gamble, they usually keep their talk about it to a minimum.

For those who develop a poor relationship with gambling, Bechtold advises two methods: total abstinence or harm-reduction. For the second option, gambling addicts learn how to create a plan of when and for how long they can afford to gamble, with how much money and what other healthy mechanisms might help them.

“The goal is abstinence, but not right away,” Bechtold said. “It can be controversial compared to treatment for substance abuse disorders, but we don’t want to just stop. Doing that might increase harm, which is common, especially for younger people.”

Abstinence also requires patients to fill their schedules with other commitments, address their underlying motives for gambling and remove their access to gambling opportunities.

Ohio offers a self-exclusion program to gamblers that forbids them from casinos, bans them from operating online accounts and restricts their available funds. Bechtold recommends smartphone-blocking software installations, like Gamban, and choosing gift cards for playing online rather than spending pocket money.

“There’s very effective methods that put distance between impulsive thoughts and acting on them,” Bechtold said. “But there’s much more that can be done.” S

I don’t n d ow k the en

Unpausing my life by pressing play

By Jessica Opfer

Design by Katie Preston

I’m screaming. Not at one person, and certainly not at myself.

My emotions weren’t fueled toward the crowd of people I stood in, or targeted at “the artist currently known” as Phoebe Bridgers, as her Twitter bio used to read.

My voice drowned in more than 5,200 other screams, but mine still felt the loudest.

This concert, in the fall of 2021, was my first in two years. I’ll admit, prior to that year I’d heard Bridgers’ name only a handful of times.

I already had my music. My playlists were filled with all the sorts of classic rock sounds you could want: dad-rock, folk rock, psychedelic rock and any other label people love to affix in front of the word.

But none of those artists or songs were ever truly mine.

It has now been six years since my dad’s skiing accident that left him with a traumatic brain injury (TBI). In six years, there have been no more yearly vacations to Salt Fork State Park. No more movie nights with our 3D Blu-ray DVD player. No more slope-side ski trips in New York. No more song discoveries hand-picked from his collection just for me.

No more of him, as he truly was, and no more of myself, as I truly was.

At 15 years old, I was left with my learner’s permit and a box of vacation souvenirs collecting dust in my closet.

The one person who made me feel content yet confident in my own self was ripped away from me in a matter of seconds. He could no longer be there for me and had unknowingly placed that hat onto myself to wear for the both of us.

I followed my dad’s every move. From helping change the oil in his 2014 white Honda Accord, which became my first car, and then my sisters, to binging “Modern Family” and staying up late every other week to watch — the often inappropriate for my age — “Saturday Night Live.”

His hobbies became my hobbies, his shows became my shows, and most formatively, his music became my music.

My most vivid memories are those of Pink Floyd dancing throughout my childhood home. At an impressively young age, I shredded my Barbie guitar in front of the television as Pink Floyd’s “Pulse (Live)” album flashed across the screen.

Next to towering CD shelves in the basement, Gilmour, Rogers, Mason and Wright radiated from my dad’s stereo, which stood taller than me, as we raced 1:32 slot cars around his self-made race tracks.

After school, their psychedelic sound bounced through my ears in my dad’s, then, 2008 Belize blue Honda Accord as we headed home.

Anytime we swam at the pool, played tennis or went for a golf cart ride, they were sure to be on. We even became known at our marina for it one summer and a total stranger gave me a Pink Floyd beach towel.

I never imagined an end to that storyline. So soon in my life, and without any real conclusion. I could no longer listen to a single chord from the guitars of David Gilmour or Roger Waters without tears or my mind going into a daze.

Pink Floyd had been my escape, and the only one I knew. I kept wearing my band t-shirts to school, but it felt unfair that he wasn’t there to see it. I had to take down all my Floyd posters and put them in the back of my closet at my mom’s. I put a smile on my face for the sake of others, but it was never really there.

Everything I knew about myself seeped away each day that he was gone. Entire parts of my brain closed off with an “out of order” sign.

Voids crept into my personality. I was floating through life without any identity, and my music taste was hiding in some dark corner of my brain, shivering.

Then someone mentioned the name Phoebe Bridgers as a recommendation over Snapchat. I didn’t think much of it at first. I didn’t have years of memories paralleled to her lyrics. She wasn’t something I’d always known or I had handed to me. Finding music on a whim was foreign territory.

The Spotify gods took the reins, and Bridgers popped out to me atop a randomly generated playlist that same week. Seven minutes and 55 seconds later, “Motion Sickness” and “Georgia” rested at the top of my liked songs.

Each song started to scratch an itch in my brain. Driving down the back roads of northern Ohio, I bounced between Bridgers’ debut, “Stranger in the Alps,” and her sophomore album, “Punisher.”

The songs started to fill the spaces that had sat vacant in my mind for nearly two years. Her lyrics were charged with so much emotion that channeling my feelings into what she’d written came naturally.

Bridgers’ songs now give me the same drumming-ofthe-steering-wheel reaction that Pink Floyd does (did).

Illustration courtesy of Bob Opfer

“I Know the End” is best listened to at night in the car — bonus points if there’s a storm. Or when the power goes out and candles are the only source of light in the room.

“Scott Street” strikes the perfect chord when pulling out of a hometown friend’s driveway knowing they’ll be a stranger for a few months.

“Funeral” breaks my heart while reminding me that this all could be worse.

On a whim, I bought two tickets to her show in Columbus, Ohio, a few months before my first-year of college.

I attended my first concert with my dad the year of his accident, seeing a tribute band, Wish You Were Here: Sights and Sounds of Pink Floyd, at the historic Ritz Theatre in Tiffin, Ohio. Attending Bridger’s “Reunion Tour” in 2021 was my first concert without either of my parents.

The lyrics that provided me with a new love for music were being sung 30 feet away from me. It was paralyzing, yet surreal. It’s been two and a half years since that show, and I’ve come to understand why my screams were the loudest.

As her closing song, “I Know the End,” built, my body was covered in a wave of goosebumps.

Bridgers told me “the end is here,” so there it was.

I got to scream at the universe for the hand of cards I’d been dealt, but I also got to start learning how to play them. And learn how to, as Bridgers taught me, find a new place to be from.

Last June, I saw Bridgers again as a member of the supergroup Boygenius alongside bandmates Julian Baker and Lucy Dacus. That night marked the second time I got to hear Bridgers’ song “Graceland Too” live.

This time, she sang it with the person it was written for – Baker – echoing a sentiment I’m constantly reminded of.

She said she knows she lived through it to get to this moment.

My dad and I listen to our music now when we’re together. His face lights up the dim healthcare center when he recognizes who it is. Without fail, he almost always says two words.

“It’s Floyd.” S

the end is near

/vin·yets/ plural noun

A collection of brief stories that provide a glimpse into the lives of different students

VIGNETTES

Grad School Blues

by Wes Payne

Heed my warning, all those that dare pursue graduate education: the process is not for the faint of heart.

You may be thinking that the grad school process can’t be that different from undergrad, and you’d be correct. You still get to drop hundreds of dollars on application fees, still get to visit new campuses to see what’s up and still get to figure out what is and isn’t within the realm of affordability.

What they don’t tell you about is the pressure that comes with the decision, and the pressure that comes with pursuing a specialized degree. September and October come around and you begin your applications, confident in your decision. Mentors encourage you along the way, and it feels validating.

But what if you’re not making the right decision? You’re taking a risk, one that will take up at least two years of your life, with no guarantee of a job to follow. It’s a risk based on a passion and positive experience, so it can’t be the wrong decision, right?

Before you know it, April comes around, your decision deadline is in less than two weeks, and you’re terrified of making the wrong choice. Graduation is coming up, and you’re thinking about leaving your friends and favorite professors behind.

It’s moving faster and faster every day.

Despite the pressure though, there’s a sense of cautious optimism. Undergrad at Miami was fun! You did all the things and met all the people. You know grad school won’t be the same, but new experiences are valuable.

Everything is about to change; it’s terrifying and wonderful at the same time. I have no idea what’s coming next, but I’m just glad the process is almost over.

It’s just two years of my life. No pressure, right? S

Closing the Curtain

by Stella Powers

Sitting in the auditorium of my former high school, I watched as the curtain opened, revealing a cast of characters – some faces familiar, others I had never seen before.

It seemed like only yesterday I was on the other side, butterflies in my stomach as we prepared to present the show we had spent months working on to an audience for the first time. I had never felt anything else like it.

As nerve-wracking and exciting as the process could be, none of it compared to the moment that curtain closes for the first time on opening night and we come out as a cast to take our bows. The uproarious applause and sound of people standing up out of their seats to applaud the cast and crew was nothing short of magical.

For the longest time, this was my life. It felt like it would never end.

Until it did.

I remember my senior bow vividly. Lining up alongside my fellow seniors, roses clenched between our teeth. I had dreamt of this moment since my first show with the drama club in 8th grade, and it had finally become a reality.

And then it was over.

I was fortunate enough to go back this fall and see my high school’s musical, “The Addams Family,” over Thanksgiving break. Being in the audience was a drastic change from what I was used to, but I loved seeing the people I cared about take the stage.

I ended up seeing the show three times.

The final performance was the closing show, which meant senior bows. It happens at the end of every production – all seniors do it. I did it.

But for some reason, it felt different this time. Watching from the audience was a new feeling, but that wasn’t the worst part. I felt an emptiness inside of me from not being up there as tears began to form in my eyes.

It took me back to the moment I was up on that stage for my final bow. It hadn't felt like the end. Deep down, I knew that it was, but it hadn’t felt real.

Only after being away from it and returning in that different, unfamiliar capacity did it hit me: that chapter of my life is over.

It was time to move on. It wasn’t easy, but I found I got the same storytelling thrill through another outlet –writing.

Theater has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. I’ve been putting on living room concerts and puppet shows since I learned how to talk, but of course, all good things must come to an end.

It was finally time to close my curtain. S

Catnapped

by Claire Lordan

When I see a flash from the side of the road, I assume it’s a trick of the light. Luckily, the winding back roads are familiar to me; I’m struggling to keep my eyes open after 10 hours of running plates of greasy food, and it’s a pitch-black night.

As I skate around a particularly sharp turn, a pair of eyes blink at me from the curb. Possum, I think, before I see two perked ears and a curved tail. A cat!

My heart lurches. The skies are clear tonight, but this road is notorious for its blind curves and jackasses racing home after a few too many beers.

I slam on the brakes, pulling over against the treelined shoulder. The cat meows as I swing open the car door, eyeing me apprehensively as I creep toward it.

Most strays would have bolted for cover using the trees, but this one holds its ground as I kneel beside it, extending my hand for a sniff.

It meows again, and seems to take a second to make up its mind before rubbing its face against my palm. In the glow of the headlights, I make note of mangy fur and speckles of black fleas that turn my stomach. I can tell she is a girl, and barely older than a kitten; her wiry frame and lanky limbs look mismatched against her large yellow eyes.

“What are you doing out here?” I ask.

She meows and, as if sensing my temptation to get back in my car, flings herself belly-up at my feet. I scratch behind her ears as she begins to purr.

My resolve melts. Gingerly, I place my hands around her, feeling her ribs poking against her skin. Her limbs dangle uselessly in the air as I rush back to the car, flinging her into the back seat and speeding away.

She meows the entire drive home, and I wonder how I will ever explain this to my mom. S

Design by Hannah Potts

PROFILE

When people hear the words “Jimmy Buffett” and “Miami,” their minds usually jump to Florida. But the singer had connections with a different Miami.

Buffett was friends with Tom Corcoran, a Miami University alum and one of the singer’s collaborators. Corcoran died Jan. 16, 2o23, at the age of 79 after a battle with cancer. Buffett would also pass away by the end of the year.

Corcoran wore many hats: writer, photographer, father, veteran. But he’ll be remembered most for his friendships, which included people like Buffett and “Gonzo” journalist Hunter S. Thompson, best known for writing the book “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.”

Corcoran was born July 13, 1943, in Cleveland, Ohio. He grew up in Shaker Heights before attending Miami University. After graduating, Corcoran served in the United States Navy and shipped out in 1967. Corcoran moved to Florida in 1968 and was stationed in Key West, where he formed his connection to the writing scene.

While in Key West Corcoran worked as a bartender at the Chart Room Bar, a quaint spot near the beach. The spot was popular among famous figures like Thompson and folk singer Jim Croce. It was around this time that an unknown artist visited the bar and struck up conversations with Corcoran.

That man would come to be known as Jimmy Buffett. Corcoran described their first time meeting in his book, “Jimmy Buffett: The Key West Years.”

“[I] gave Jimmy his first beer ‘on the house’ as a welcome to the island,” Corcoran wrote. “Jimmy saw the freebie and the bar’s ambience as omens of great things to come.”

Corcoran described how Buffett would perform for drinks at the bar, often covering songs like “Danny’s Song” by Kenny Loggins and Jim Messina, or partnering with other musicians like Croce.

During this period at the Chart Room Bar, Corcoran and Buffett would compete in a race where they had to take a shot of tequila at the bar then run to the shore, where they would hop on boats and make their way to Christmas Tree Island.

The race was a disaster, with multiple boats breaking. The experience inspired Buffett’s song “Nautical Wheelers.”

Corcoran took photos for seven of Buffett’s albums. He’s listed as the photographer on “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes,” which Spin Magazine ranked as Buffett’s best album after the singer’s death. The album featured the song “Margaritaville” and an array of photos of Buffett on the inside of the record release.

He also obtained songwriting credits on Buffett’s “Fins” and “Cuban Crimes of Passion.” The woman described in “Fins” takes a journey similar to the one Corcoran made when he left Miami University to head to Florida: “She came down from Cincinnati / It took her three days on a train.”

Design by Hannah Potts

Photos courtesy of William McKeen

In the 1970s, Buffett had an apartment in Key West that often received visitors, allowing Corcoran to meet Buffett’s friends.

“One long-term guest in this apartment was Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, the well-known journalist of Gonzo fame,” Corcoran wrote.

“For weeks at a stretch, between 1976 and 1979, Hunter worked in Key West on movie scripts and magazine articles, often collaborating with [me], and spent his leisure hours in the yard at the ocean’s edge,” Corcoran wrote. “It once was said that Jimmy gave up his apartment because he couldn’t afford Hunter’s phone bill.”

“Buffett said [to Thompson], ‘If you need anything, call Corcoran,’” Corcoran recalled about this period, according to his obituary in The Ledger. “And of course, Hunter being Hunter, he needed lots of things.”

Although Corcoran was private about his personal life, numerous details of his relationships with other Key West residents have been kept alive by William McKeen, an author who wrote books about the Key West scene and Thompson. Corcoran reached out to McKeen as McKeen was writing a biography about Thompson.

McKeen and Corcoran talked over the phone and decided to meet up. McKeen said the day the two met is his favorite memory of Corcoran, describing the meet

up as an “adult play date” with Corcoran showing him objects around his house.

McKeen was fascinated.

“It was just meeting this guy who was older than me by 10 years or so, who seemed to be like a smart Forrest Gump,” McKeen said. “And that’s kind of funny considering he took the photo of the author on the back of ‘Forrest Gump.’”

McKeen would continue to consult with Corcoran as he learned about Thompson’s life for his book “Outlaw Journalist: The Life and Times of Hunter S. Thompson.” Thompson became friends with Corcoran and would even babysit Corcoran’s son Sebastian.

“He would drive up in the yard, which is not a yard where you could park cars, but he did,” McKeen said. “He’d pull in front of their house, and he had a police bullhorn, and he’d yell, ‘Sebastian, I have arrived. Turn on the news.’”

During their friendship, Corcoran and Thompson collaborated on a treatment for a film about marijuana smugglers in the Keys, titled “Cigarette Key.” Though they started working on a script, the film never materialized.

Corcoran didn’t only write with his friends. He had his own novels, including the Alex Rutledge Mysteries series.

“Alex Rutledge is a photographer, and he has a lot of other things in common with Tom, including the fact that he just happens to be everywhere at the right time,” McKeen said.

Corcoran’s friends supported his writing and publishing. Thompson and Buffett both wrote blurbs for Corcoran’s first book, “The Mango Opera,” the first in his Alex Rutledge series.

“‘The Mango Opera’ reconnects my heart and brain to Key West,” Buffett wrote on the cover.

Corcoran not only wrote books but inspired them as well. He was the one who convinced McKeen to write a book about people like Buffett and Thompson who frequented Key West. In the finished book, titled “Mile Marker Zero,” McKeen opened with a chapter about Corcoran.

In the chapter, titled “The Taco Man,” McKeen recounted how the Navy brought Corcoran to Key West. He introduced the readers to the setting through Corcoran’s own eyes, beginning the chapter with Thompson’s final words to Corcoran, left on Corcoran’s answering machine in December 2004.

“Tom, we had an active night tonight. I spent a lot of time talking with Buffett down at Nicholson’s house, and we both got very excited about the Key West years, the ‘missing years,’ the ones that you have so well documented,” Thompson said. “We’re going to reconvene down there and go back over the stories, the

photographs, and maybe do a little boating. Let’s have ‘The Boys’ back – Chatham, McGuane, whoever’s alive. It’s going to be good. We’re going to have a little fun with this one.”

Corcoran never got around to calling back; McKeen says he “got too busy” and the time difference between Corcoran’s Florida and Thompson’s Colorado made it difficult.

Just weeks later, Thompson died by suicide.

Corcoran attended Thompson’s funeral, and McKeen spoke highly of the pair’s relationship.

“I think the fact that he spoke to Tom and spoke so affectionately to Tom shows what a valued friendship that was,” McKeen said. “I’ve never heard the word ‘asshole’ and ‘Tom Corcoran’ in the same sentence because everyone I know that knew him and knew him better than I did just always thought he was the most wonderful, principled human being.”

Though Corcoran played such an essential role in the shaping of the Key West scene, he never fully left Ohio behind, McKeen said.

“[I] sense among fellow Midwesterners this kind of basic honesty and decency,” McKeen said. “[Tom] may have lived most of his life in Florida, but I don’t think in a way he ever left the Midwest in terms of manners and decency and all those other things that really matter.” S

The

Great American Road Trip

Written by An abundance of Americana and cheap T-shirts Devin Ankeney

The Grand Canyon is over 1,500 miles away from Oxford, Ohio. I’ve concocted ambitious road trips before. But I’ve never pulled together a group of five friends to cross two time zones and six states in five days to make it to the epitome of the American West — the epitome of American greatness.

It was time.

Months of talking and hours of planning went into crafting the most feasible trip to Arizona possible. We only had a week and a day. We had Luke Macy, Sean Scott, Meta Hoge, Sarah Frosch and me. We had one midsize orange Toyota SUV and a dream.

To see it.

On Friday, we’d ease into the expansive West. Less than six hours of a drive, we just had to get to Sarah’s condo in St. Louis. Saturday, we’d hoof it through flatter-than-a-pancake hell in Kansas to stop in Boulder, Colorado. Sunday, rest and explore the magnificent city and the Rocky Mountains.

Monday, we’d take our wills and prayers through the Rockies west through Colorado, down through Utah, and into Flagstaff, Arizona. Then we’d have two days. Two days to see the Grand Canyon and whatever else tickled our fancy within driving distance of our Airbnb. Finally,

Design by Katie Preston

we’d convince ourselves to turn around from the Great American West and head home to Ohioland.

We all hoped for an incredible trip seeing places and natural beauties we’d never seen before — to mark states off our respective maps. I hoped for a little more.

As I come to the end of these four years at Miami University, I’m constantly reminded of what I haven’t yet done. The moments I haven’t seized. I’ve been anxious about my future, where I’ll be working or if I’ll even be working right out of school. I’ve toiled over my future and what to make of it, and the graduation panic has set in.

I needed some relief. A break. A chance to step away from all the crap bogging my happiness down. I needed to feel sheer greatness, to take a load off and to stew in a few moments where I wasn’t searching for meaning in my own life.

With all my pre-break work finished, my bags packed and my heart set on a goal across America, we set off.

Day One, Oxford to St. Louis: The gateway to the West

We decided to leave at about noon. Meta had to drive to Oxford, some still had to pack. Sean and I each had meetings and tasks for the morning.

We gathered in the parking lot outside of my apartment. We shoved our crap into the back of Sean’s car, filling as much as it could take. After snapping an inaugural photo of us all to signal the great beginning, we piled into the car.

At about 12:15 p.m., we put the car in drive and started cooking westward.

Indiana is boring as hell. That’s a fact. I’m sure there are some redeemable qualities in “The Crossroads of America,” but to me and everyone else cramped into the car, it was the fields of sameness we were used to living in Oxford.

However, our excitement could be gleaned from miles away. Some of us were still worried about the trip. Would it be too cramped? Would there be fights? Would we screw up planning and miss out on great things?

But, by the time we got to a Culver’s near Indianapolis, our fears began to quell and our excitement took the front seat. Good eats and full bellies. A good start.

The next few hours remained uneventful. Save a gas station full of cheesy apparel covered in comic and cartoon characters in Altamont, Illinois, we didn’t make another stop until St. Louis. Luke and I wanted to stop at a café featuring “foot high pies,” but nobody else hopped to the desire and we trudged on, the pie lovers sat with disappointment.

Soon thereafter, we made it within shouting distance of St. Louis. The Gateway City. From miles away, Sean and I in the front seat saw the Arch. A massive, towering thing, we were shocked beyond belief at how large it was from such a distance. It was the first real thing we encountered on our voyage, and we were elated.

After throwing our stuff into Sarah’s condo, we piled back in for quick-serve barbecue food. Sarah’s from Chicago, but spent much of her life in St. Louis. She knew the places to go. Our trays were stacked high with pork, sausage, chicken, turkey and Mac & Cheese to go ’round. Once again, our bellies were full, and the sun was getting low.

Time for the Arch.

city to wander the nation’s smallest national park. We all agreed that it should be a national monument. It’s barely a yard, let alone a park. But, we parked across the street and saw, for the first time since we noticed it in the distance from Illinois, the towering steel parabola in the sky.

We didn’t get up close during the day, but I reasoned it was eerier at night. The monument’s true height was unclear. It was both shorter and taller than before. Though slightly less interesting up close, the Arch didn’t

fail to strike me with thoughts of America’s past. Of westward expansion and humanity’s innate desire to keep going.

There was a greater power vested here than of my simple being. It wasn’t about me or anyone else. The Arch serves as a testament to America and who we ultimately became, what our national identity became. It was a simple pleasure below a feat of design, but I felt my first peace — no anxieties for the moment about the months to come in my life.

It felt only right to start the trip with a dedicated run westward through the thing.

We were — literally and symbolically — off.

Day Two, St. Louis to Colorado: I don’t

wanna talk about it

Luke, Sean and I concocted a plan to get us out the door. We’d say we’re leaving by 8 o’clock, hoping we’d be out the door by 8:30 a.m.. We figured it would spur everyone — including us — to get to stepping early.

We got up real early. I couched it. Luke and I made breakfast — sausage and eggs per Sarah’s fridge — while the rest prepped for the 12-plus hour day in the car.

The day started strong. Luke made fun of me for how I made the frozen sausage that required two steps. I was laughing and dishing it back to him by 7:30 a.m. Good stuff to start the morning.

We didn’t start packing the car until after 8. Right on time.

Off we went. Across Missouri, Kansas, and the miserable eastern 60% of Colorado. Too much for one day? Probably. But, we believed — some more than others — that this feat would be accomplished.

Sean was worried about how late we’d make it in and was wary of making too many stops. I didn’t care when we made it to our hotel near Boulder and just wanted to experience as much as we could. Luke was somewhere in the middle. Sarah and Meta just wanted to have fun and go along for the ride.

We found our balance. Halfway across a pretty monotonous Missouri, we stopped in Columbia for gas and a brief leg stretching. I found a Little Free Library and picked up Stephen King’s “Fire-Starter” before getting gas and deciding to check out the University of Missouri. Four of the five of us either had studied or were studying journalism, and Mizzou was arguably the premier j-school in the country.

Miami’s campus may be Robert Frost’s idea of

perfection, but Mizzou gives it a run for its money. We pulled into a large quad lined with Georgian halls. Planted in the middle were six pillars symbolizing the school’s core values.

The stop took longer than it should have, but one of the journalism buildings sat to our left. Like a pie scent wafting on a sill, the building drew us in. Second maybe only to the Farmer School of Business, it was more magnificent than nearly any other building at Miami. It certainly put the decrepit Williams Hall to shame.

It had at least three floors, walls lined with awards, photographs and movie posters. There was a photography library. It did a number on our ideas of what a “journalism program” meant. I wondered if I’d ever have the chance to go to graduate school there as we left to get back in the car. It was too brilliant to be reality, and while I don’t regret my time at Miami, it made me wonder what could’ve been.

On the road again. No stops until Kansas City. There wasn’t a damn thing worth remembering before we got there.

We stopped at Panera Bread and the Lego Store downtown. It didn’t seem like there was much else to do there. We wasted too much time and I was disappointed. I finally got hooked on just getting to the mountains. Kansas City was just some city on the way to greatness.

Why waste time with the insignificant? I was getting all high and mighty.

The Kansas stretch began. Other than a fascinating navy blue dome on the state’s capitol building, it was a simple, mind-numbing emptiness. Kansas doesn’t just meet expectations, it exceeds them. There isn’t anything there. Emptiness for miles and miles. Trees grew at an angle following the perpetual northerly winds, and there were more windmill farms than I could count.

The grand nothingness of Kansas’ farms didn’t conjure an easy go about comprehending the area. Ohio has its corn and soy fields, but Kansas was another beast entirely. “Flatter than a pancake” is a nickel-and-dime approach to characterizing the state. It’s empty and it hurt my soul to experience the odd museum and church with hundreds of miles of blank sky between them.

After a few hours my head was about to explode from boredom, so I offered a stop in what looked like a cute town with local art. Salina, Kansas. It was too far off the highway and we parked too far from the coffee shop.

It seemed a haven for those living outside the norm in Kansas. Local art lined the public streets. An old movie theater. Fliers for the Democratic Socialists of Salina hung on the board in the coffee shop. If it weren’t a forced stop on a drive that was too long for one day to begin with, it would’ve been a damn cool place to check out. I’m sure of that.

It was just stalled time, pushing our arrival to be later than it needed to be, and it was my fault. I tried to make something fun happen out of thin air in a matter of minutes. I usually had a knack for planning such things and this was a solid botch and a half. I did see a sculpture of a catfish riding a bike, so that was something. Not really. Back in the goddamn car.

It was already 6 p.m. and we had six more hours to go.

For the rest of the drive, we stopped twice for gas and saw an incredible sunset. Maybe the only redeeming quality from that bitch of a drive across hundreds of miles of nothing.

With the hour gained entering Mountain time, we got to an In-n-Out Burger at about 10 p.m. I ate about as much as I could carry. Before ordering my DoubleDouble, animal-style fries and a milkshake, we stumbled into a father whose daughter was going to Miami. Who would’ve thought?

We crushed our food and gunned it to the hotel.

The sun had been down since Kansas, so without even a brief sighting of the mountains that night, we were all a little disappointed. We were mentally and physically tired and just wanted to see something worth seeing. It had been two days of driving through middle America and nobody cared about that stretch of the trip.

We let ourselves collapse on the hotel beds. A welldeserved slumber.

Day Three, Boulder, Colorado: Hanging in the Rockies

We were all zonked. We had breakfast plans at 9 a.m. with our friend Reece Hollowell. He’s another student at Miami and a great friend of ours. His spring break trip: a whole week in Boulder to see family and enjoy the Rockies.

My sister Danielle, a student at the University of Colorado Boulder, gave me just one suggestion for our breakfast: Foolish Craig’s Café. I’d been the previous August when I helped move her into her first off-campus apartment. As a Guy Fieri-approved restaurant, Foolish Craig’s was sure to be a hit.

After getting up, I ushered Sean over to the window. Every inch farther west we got was the farthest west Sean had ever been, and we could see the mountains — finally — from our hotel window.

We both realized: Oh. They’re right there. We left for the famed city outside of Denver.

We got to the café — late, as expected — and sat down with Reece and his father Randy, a Miami employee. Our table soon filled quickly with coffees and Western-style breakfasts. Chorizo burritos and the “Foolish huevos” on a tortilla for myself. It had been a long while since I’d indulged in a breakfast that large.

Pork Green Chili and chorizo reminded me how different it can feel to be out west. Even a simple meal made better in the West can imbue an ambiance I wasn’t yet fully feeling. Randy paid for the whole meal, which made us all smile as we had already started spending more than we wanted to.

The day’s agenda: shopping and getting into the fabled mountains we’d only glimpsed so far.

We went into a kitschy but fun candy store. A puzzle store with extraordinarily shaped pieces, one of which we could take for free. Boulder Book Store, where nearly all of us left with more than one book. Reece, Luke and I each got a copy of “Antkind” by Charlie Kaufman. These two “film bros” didn’t even know the movie man had written a book.

Kaufman wrote one of my favorite movies — “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” I had to pick it up too.

Finally, we went into Paradise Found. I’d been to the large record store once before (same August I went to Foolish Craig’s) and so had Reece, but it was time to sick the vinyl newbies on the wide selection.

Between each store, we found plaques of odd faces in the ground, got our eardrums busted by a church bell and took three wrong turns courtesy of Reece’s mapping abilities. We finally arrived at the record shop.

Folks were thrilled, Luke in particular. The shop had so many options. It even had the soundtrack for Wes Anderson’s “Asteroid City,” which we’d end up watching days later and provided me with a better perspective on the trip and my outlook on graduation.

Luke and I each got mystery boxes, 10 records apiece. The car was going to be very, very full, but we didn’t care. In Oxford, a city that feels smaller with every passing day I live here, it’s harder to come by media that tickles my fancy. There’s not so much window shopping in Oxford as there is Amazon shopping, and that does not a damn thing for the soul the way local stores can in beautiful towns.

I was glad Boulder was filled with genuinely interesting shops and restaurants. In most places I’m accustomed to, that doesn’t happen much.

It seemed each of us yearned for a little more than seeing nature in its most impossible element. We wanted to experience a different life. One that might be ripe for our futures. Boulder had great stores, a beautiful movie theater, more restaurants than could be counted and you’d have to work hard to stay out of sight of the Rocky Mountains. It’s a blissful, fairytale land.

We bid farewell to Reece. Time to see the mountains.

Driving over to Chautauqua Park at the base of the Flatirons, our grins widened. Imagine mountains with

saw the winding dirt path in the field leading up to the formations as an invitation to make it as close and far up as we could.

With a wooden fence along our right-hand side, we began hiking up the steeper-than-it-seemed path. Within minutes we were in a forest on the side of a mountain.

How the hell could any of this be real?

I’d been to the park before and I was still reeling. I thought that we were on the set of a horror movie as we avoided mud to look at the sky-high, deep green trees. I embodied my childhood self for a few minutes up there. There were few people and the sky cleared up a bit. Hundreds of trees blocked our view in any direction but up — where the jutting canine teeth for rocks shot out at the stars.

Luke and I constantly joked with one another. I’d come to think of the two of us as partners in off-thecuff comedy. Sean and Meta were thrilled to be out here for the first time. We took silly photos and I started my series of selfies in hopes of making the most ridiculous possible faces. Nothing mattered. Boulder was pure fun. Anything else on my mind trickled away with each step on the Rockies.

For my next trick, I’d take the wheel of Sean’s RAV4 and take the closest road with an incline as far as everyone was comfortable going.

With one left turn out of the parking lot, we were headed up a road I’d driven once before, and it took mere seconds to hit elevations we weren’t expecting. The tight road was curvier than a kid’s first ski path and there was an astounding drop-off only a few feet off the nonexistent shoulder.

We made several stops. Each one just urged us to pull over, step out and admire our surroundings. There wasn’t much discussion about it. We either had to pull off because nature was beckoning us to do so, or it didn’t have the magic.

Each one was better than the last. The farther away from civilization we got, the farther removed we got from what was pushing us down.

At one stop, we goofed off on the reddening rocks. Luke, a burgeoning cinematographer, filmed my interpretive, spontaneous dance to “I.L.B.T.’s” by Joe Walsh. Walsh, a former Boulder resident, has written great songs like “Rocky Mountain Way.” Look up “I.L.B.T.’s.” You’ll see why I chose it, as a fan of nonsense.

When we made it high enough, there were still snow patches. We threw them at each other. We ate some. Except for when operating a motor vehicle, we were children again like down at the base, but this time, we had made the climb.

Final stop up the mountain. We were walking at over 6,000 feet in elevation. After finding a nice rock to lean against while imbibing the view, it dawned on us that people lived up there. Driving up there, we saw huge houses and the beginnings of ranches. Mailboxes began to seep into the picture. Folks had lives, jobs and families up there.

I live in an apartment in a rural Ohio town. It felt like a joke to see real people up there. I felt a little gypped. My sister lives in an apartment in view of these mountains, right next to a gorgeous campus and a city full of wonderful people and things to do.

“Are you jealous of your sister?” Luke asked me after I ranted about this for a minute.

“Yes,” I replied. “Well, sort of. Yes.”

We got back in the car and drove deeper with no intention of stopping. We headed down the mountain to a brewery built out of a former single-family home in Louisville. I knew an Orange Kolsch there I believed Luke would like, as he’s an admirer of all things orange.

We needed a rest too, from all that walking, climbing, driving and lack of sleep.

After our break, it began to sprinkle rain so we stopped back at the hotel to play Conduct TOGETHER! It’s a party game that Meta, Luke and I played while Sarah and Sean rested up.

At 5:30, we left to go back to Boulder. My sister and I made dinner plans at The Sink — another Guy Fieriapproved restaurant, two in one day. We hadn’t seen each other in a couple of months, and it would be the first time seeing just each other — no parents — outside of living together for two decades.

At breakfast, Randy had warned us about the possible eight inches of snow to come overnight. It worried us a bit for our 12-hour driving day the following morning, but it wasn’t yet on our minds. Yet it had begun to come down as we pulled up to the restaurant famous among CU Boulder students.

President Barack Obama even went there once.

I got us a table and my sister and her boyfriend came in a few minutes late. She was at his place and he only lives a block away. I was jealous again.

We almost all got the buffalo mac ’n’ cheese notso-cleverly called “Buff Mac.” It was delicious and the perfect college student food. I talked to my sister about her life and what she’s been doing. I made fun of her boyfriend, Ethan, and we all laughed and had quite a nice time.

When Ethan left the table for a minute, I egged the whole table on to make fun of him and my sister thinking he seemed like a nerd.

Ethan was by no means a “frat guy” stereotype but he’s definitely a “cool guy.” She loved hearing what we all thought of him behind his back. It felt like what siblings were always meant to do, and I finally got a run at it. I liked Ethan. I was happy for her, and I never knew we’d be so happy to see one another.

She and Ethan ordered some more Buff Mac for their friend Drew who was still on the clock. I paid (why yes, I really am quite something, aren’t I?), and we headed for the door.

A nice hug. A “great to see you.” Some best wishes for the journey back to our hotel.

It reminded me of the years of childhood when we couldn’t interact without it erupting into a screaming match.

It was one of the simplest experiences I’d ever had with my sister. It was just dinner where she lived. But, if I had been alone, I’m sure I would have cried in the car. I realized I missed my sister. I wondered what it could’ve been like if we got along all those years instead of fighting.

My eyes were welled up with tears nearly the whole way to the hotel, while Luke drove through a nearblizzard that piled a half-inch of snow on all the roads.

Day Four, Colorado to Flagstaff, Arizona: The most beautiful drive that ever there was

We got up pretty damn early. We were already in the snow-covered mountains by 7:30. It had snowed as much as eight inches between our hotel in Longmont, Colorado, and the great plateaus in the east of the state.

Sean took the first couple of legs of driving. He wanted a run at mountain driving, but he was worried, too, about letting anyone else take the wheel on the slick highways.

We took Highway 6 for the first 45 minutes until we could make the interstate. We skipped the first 50 miles of I-70 hoping to avoid traffic. It was the best decision we could’ve made.

The peaks of these impossibly tall mountains were stunning. It was like staring at a painting for hours straight. Every curve ushered a “wow,” or a “holy shit…” from someone. Well, most verbal reactions came from me. I didn’t know how to keep my mouth shut in awe of that much spectacularity.

We coasted 10 mph below the speed limit through short tunnels, random patches of densely packed evergreens and ski towns full of folks trying to make the best of one of their last outings of the season.

I couldn’t get enough of it. I’d always been in love with Colorado, Boulder and anywhere the sun set behind anything other than the horizon, but this smacked me across the face. It wasn’t a photograph or a nice view. I was in it. We were up in the Rocky Mountains, and going deeper every second.

When massive formations blocked the snow from covering them, we saw sheer rocks and trees in their unweathered environment, framed by skyscraping peaks. We found our way to I-70, and it didn’t let up.

Passing through those same ski towns and tighter curves than should be on an interstate, it just got better and better the whole time.

Our first gas stop of the day was in one of those little ski towns, a Conoco station in Frisco. I got myself a coffee, a bag of Boulder-branded salt and vinegar chips to share and an interaction with one of the happier gas station attendants I’ve met.

I walked up to the counter and received an uppity “How ya doing?” from the older gentleman behind a pane of spit-resistant plastic. I tried to match his enthusiasm for the simple pleasure of talking to someone on the road, but I fell a little behind. My total: $9 even.

“Is there no sales tax on these things in Colorado?” I asked. Usually, I’d expect a ‘How should I know?’ from an attendant in his position.

“Well, let me get your receipt for ya and you can see!” the cashier said, intrigued by the question.

Cool beans.

We continued on our merry way, trudging through slushy highways. I finally made it up to the front seat. Sarah and Meta took turns napping, but I would’ve had to pry my eyes off the car windows to do anything but stare at nature in its most exquisite form.

Luke pulled out his Nintendo Switch.

“Wanna play Mario Kart?” I asked.

“Yes.”

That did the trick.

After a stint of losing to the master of Mario Kart, we were finally beginning to hit the big plateaus. After a few hours west on 70 in Colorado, you’ll hit massive, wideopen spaces outlined by the Rockies. We’d see train tracks following the path of the road, and towns and cities all too big to reside somewhere that oozed “fairytale land” vibes. It’s unbelievable until you’re there (and even then, it didn’t quite make sense) to see 75,000-person cities that high up, nestled in the bosom of the mountains.

Real people lived there. With real lives. Real jobs. Real yesterdays, todays and tomorrows.

It was here that I realized we weren’t just window shopping for cool views. We were experiencing the West in its element.

We pushed through, stopping only one more time in Grand Junction — where the snow had let up and gave way for the beginnings of red rocks and cliffs, a color that never seems to look anything but magical when found in nature.

We fueled up at a Love’s Travel Stop and it was my turn to drive. I got behind the wheel for the final 30 miles of Colorado before we hit Utah, and my agonizing over where I’d end up after graduation began to fade. I spent my time unencumbered by thoughts, while others took turns reading their books or resting up. Sean put headphones in for a stint sitting in the back.

Luke was in the front with me, so I knew it would be non-stop joking around and pure, joyful banter until we made it to Arches National Park: the destination for my leg of driving. When Luke and I were in front, nobody got to sleep. We put on a show.

Utah is a massive expanse of nothingness in a way Kansas wants to be. The dessert out there is breathtaking, forcing you to feel small in comparison to the world around you. But, it doesn’t hurt so much to feel insignificant out there. Rather, it reminds you of the raw tonnage of beauty and joy that exists if you just choose to seek it out.

I drove steadily on with my partner-in-stupid to my right for quite a while before it was time to hook a left and head south for the first time on the trip. Arches and Moab, here we come.

The distant mountains and oddly rainy deserts shrunk in the rearview mirror as the road started sloping down alongside a humongous red cliff on the right.

The entrance to Arches was underwhelming. It was a small entrance next to a steep, curvy road leading into the park. We were curious about the stop, but wary of how many hours of daylight we had left.

No matter. We had to see what was going on up there.

We made it up the steep entranceway road and barely made it a quarter mile before we had to stop. Red rock formations were erected in impossible ways. The steep road wasn’t just cool from the bottom, it led to some of the greatest views I never knew existed. The state highway was far, far below but it had only been five minutes of driving. How could things have changed so quickly?

We admired our stop for a moment and pushed further into the park. We stopped a few more times along the way to admire flat-walled monuments that could only have been designed by an architect from the

heavens. Finally, we found — by accident — what I was most looking forward to at Arches National Park.

It is important to note that I value the ridiculous and silly above most other things. Where the ridiculous can be infused into the beautiful, I find my greatest experiences.

The Phallus.

I apologize for being crass, but it was a giant penis pointing to the sun. I have no idea — we all had no idea, through our laughter — how it could have formed. There wasn’t much within 200 yards of the formation. It genuinely seemed that the park was erect in front of our very eyes. Check that one off the list, I guess.

We turned around and headed for lunch in Moab, as The Band’s “The Weight” came on exiting the park.

Take a load off, Fanny Take a load for free

The abundance of Americana was overwhelming. It’s moments like these that let all my troubles and fears melt completely, utterly away. For those few minutes, I took a load off while trekking America. For those few minutes, not a damn thing could ruin it.

Mere moments down the road, it was ruined. A Marriott hotel next to a Coca-Cola-branded gift shop was a punch in the gut for all of us. My glowing expression dropped. So did Luke’s. My abundance of Americana was shot in the leg by hyper-capitalism hoping to make a quick buck out of folks trying to enjoy untouched nature only a few miles away.

The thoughts of my future, the future of this country and where I’d end up trying to make a living rushed back in like Niagara Falls. Moment: over.

Moab was no different. Even the diner we went to, which seemed to be steeped in decades of history, was spoiled by over-branding and a wide state highway running through the kitschy, shop-laden town. Sure, the food was good and, sure, I got to take my picture next to the Gonzo Motel sign (stylized as an homage to my favorite writer, Hunter S. Thompson). But, at what cost?

How can the wonders of this world be spoiled so easily by those looking for profit? I’m not a fool. At least, I didn’t think I was. I was displeased.

We got back in the car from the diner in Moab, having deleted our Four Corners stop. We failed to see that it would be closed by the time we got there. Hey, at least we saved an hour.

Down to my next ironic pleasure: Mexican Hat.

I tried to shove off the painful anxieties that came out after Arches. I wasn’t successful, but the tacky, touristy haven quickly gave way to huge expanses again, and I could start to rest a little more easily from behind the wheel.

Mexican Hat is a rock formation that looks, well, like an upside-down Sombrero atop the peak of a short red rock mountain. It’s balanced in such a way that surely can’t be possible, but it is.

After another couple hours of driving, we pulled into a huge camping lot in the middle of nowhere Utah and parked in an RV camping spot in a sandy field with otherwise not a speck of manmade. Another beautiful, goofy rock formation in the sky with nothing behind it but the bluest sky I’ve ever seen.

It was stupid. It was gorgeous. It didn’t feel real seeing it up there, and this was just some camping stop in rural Utah. As we continued with our 12-hour driving day, it further dawned on me: It’s going to keep getting better.

Final stretch to Flagstaff. We were all tired and the sun was getting low. In our last moments of light, we stumbled upon the famous road in “Forrest Gump” where Forrest just felt like running. My parents got a kick out of that.

The last experience in the daylight was that of the skinny, impossibly tall formations that struck me. Erosion built a city and my mind wandered to the millions of years that came before me, reminding me not to worry so much. Time, such as life, happens to everything. Make the most of it while you can.

The rest of the night was uneventful. More backseat naps. A stop at a gas station with old school, handpainted “Tire Repair” signs. A stint through much of the Navajo Nation.

We got our fast food right before pulling into the Airbnb and, promptly, passing out one by one.

Day Five, in Arizona: Sedona and capitalism run amok

The prize was so close, I could begin to feel it. The Grand Canyon was only 90 minutes away, but after 12 hours of driving the day before, we needed an easier day. Plus, we didn’t know if Sedona would fare up, and wanted the climax of the trip to be as special as possible.

The Lone Spur Cafe. A cowboy-themed establishment, the breakfast and lunch restaurant sported western license plates, hats, animals and other memorabilia on the walls.

We sat by a window where we could still see views, despite the ugly strip malls in the way. A few steps away sat a table of four cops getting their own fixings before their day started. As we ate our western-style breakfast — Luke and I got huevos rancheros to savor the moment — we cracked a few jokes about our proximity to the officers of the law.

Luke and I each took turns offering to fight one another to see if we could get arrested.

The food was fantastic, and I’d finally had my share of caffeine to get me through the day. We headed back to grab Sarah and head down to the fabled town among the red mountains.

It was only about an hour’s drive from our Airbnb in Flagstaff to get to Sedona. We drove through a forest for a while once we got out of Flagstaff, and Luke hyped up the day. He told us Sedona was wonderful. My mom told me the same before we embarked on our trip.

Out of nowhere, we took a curve and the incredible happened. The Earth must’ve heard our calls for something spectacular and bent reality in the form of steep hills, tightly curved roads and forest-covered mountains.

What started as a relatively flat drive turned into a challenge. Jagged rocks jutted from the side of the road so close that I surely could have reached out to touch them if I’d stuck my hand out from the window. Each turn brought new scenery. Right curve: steep downhill slope in view of snow-covered mountains. Left curve: red, rocky mountains. What the hell was happening? I still don’t know.

The drive from Boulder to Flagstaff was a mesmerizing trek, but the short drive to Sedona kicked our asses because we didn’t expect it. It almost felt like Washington or New England with how many trees covered everything around us. I clung to my window.

Once we made it down the road enough to level out, Luke saw a hut at the entrance to a small park.

“Should we stop?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said nearly before he finished asking.

Twelve dollars later, we parked the car and basked in the random beauty we stumbled upon. Walking down one path, we found a creek with pinecones and rocks to try and skip. We crossed the creek. It opened up to a path through a skinny field at the base of a red-layered hill. It was nearly 90 degrees and vertical. Above and beyond was a taller mountain of white rock. Like someone chose different colors to paint each one.

were fixing an informational sign that, well, had no information.

“What is this?” Luke asked them. Their faces lit up, and after they told us, they talked about how cool it was that people were still interested in the details of places like these.

It used to be an inn. A place to stay. Movie stars like Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart once stayed at what now is a pile of a few dozen rocks and a perfectly intact circular window. We were all shocked to hear it was anything more than an old house. Luke and I, having watched “How the West Was Won” the day before the trip, which costars Jimmy Stewart, couldn’t believe our ears.

If Luke hadn’t looked up at the right time while driving, if I hadn’t egged on his impulse to stop, if we hadn’t chosen the path we did, we wouldn’t have gotten to see this place.

It was a remarkable coincidence. Or fate. I’m not sure. All I know is that I was filled with wonder as I checked out the several building ruins in the small complex. I snapped some photos and wondered where Jimmy Stewart may have stood. I wondered who he talked to or if he stayed with anyone else I knew of.

Sean, Luke and I climbed into a room literally carved into the side of the cliff with a telescopically shaped peep hole pointed to the sky. No signs. No indicators. Just a hole in the mountain big enough to fit the three of us and then some.

I spent those few minutes further thinking about the past and the great people who had been there. I thought about my being there, about my place in the world relative to theirs. I thought about how much can change in one person’s lifetime, and I started to realize that what happens to me after graduation is just one step. Inns that once housed Jimmy Stewart then fell apart and became parks for folks to visit. People’s lives really aren’t all that different, if you think about it.

We marched on. Another creek and a different cliff pulled up right in front of our noses. It curved over our heads on one side. I skipped some rocks, and we took some silly group photos to commemorate that random, wonderful experience.

Turning around, Sarah and I lagged behind the other three. Sarah started to lag even farther behind. I kept my pace as I started to hear the sounds around me. I didn’t want to catch up or wait for anyone. I wanted to listen in. Streaming water. Birds singing. The wind making tree branches and needles rustle. It began to drizzle, and the patter on the sidewalk and surrounding nature filled me with something indescribable.

After walking along the cliff of a hill for a minute, the ruins of a building came into view. Two park employees

I soaked it all in for the few minutes I walked back to the car.

When we finally got into Sedona, the town itself took a backseat to the scenery. Sedona must’ve been handpicked by someone brilliant. The same scenery we drove into just moments before now created a border around the town filled with shops and restaurants galore.

We parked and headed into a few, taking in the impossible-to-miss views the whole way.

In the first shop, we all looked at some jewelry and listened to the shopkeep talk to one of her customers. The guy was on his own big hiking trip, hoping to meet cool and local people. He was successful so far, he said.

We went to lunch at 89Agave, a Mexican cantina. I ordered shrimp tacos and a Pacifico. I got my food and my beer. It was authentic Mexican food and I hadn’t had anything like that in a couple years. We don’t have that in Oxford.

After a few minutes, a second waiter came over with another beer in hand.

“Pacifico?” He asked.

“I’ve already got mine,” I replied.

He looked down at my beer. He looked up at the one in his hand. He looked down again. He looked at me.

“Merry Christmas,” he said before planting the second pint on the table and walking away. We all laughed and went on to enjoy one of our better meals of the trip.

Trying a few more stores after lunch, I realized Sedona wasn’t all it was cut out to be. The shops that at first glance seem quirky and local really propped up the worst talons of capitalism. There were a few gems, but

most shops sold overpriced garbage and cheap branded T-shirts to make a quick buck off tourists trying to enjoy a vacation in a beautiful area.

The shops capitalized off greed. I wanted some of the things I saw, in all honesty. And I did ultimately leave with a new jacket and a bracelet. I felt conned. The views were stunning but I couldn’t resist the feeling of being a cheap consumerist.

I found myself returning to a shop that gets 2.5 stars from reviews. I tend to give places like this a chance, as sometimes they bring the best around. I grabbed the jacket I wanted off the rack and headed to the counter.

“How’re you liking your time in Sedona?” The shopkeep asked me. The middle-aged, large and balding man had a gruff look about him. But, he seemed genuinely interested in his customers. Or maybe me.

“Does it get better than this?” I replied, referring exclusively to the scenery.

“Yes,” he forcefully retorted with a chuckle. He proceeded to run on a nearly 10-minute tangent about how the town decades ago was a celebrity party hub. Maybe Jimmy Stewart used to frequent cool bars in Sedona back when Disney practically owned the town.

The shopkeep posited that Disney owned everything there. He said it was a big spot for filming movies, which was way cool but let me down a little. I loved hearing about Sedona’s past and was thrilled it used to be a movie town, but couldn’t get over the feeling that everything turns into Las Vegas when it becomes profitable enough.

There was a rock formation in the distance that passingly resembled Snoopy laying down on his

doghouse. Half the shops had stickers and t-shirts featuring the rock. All of them forced the image just to make a “cool,” $35 shirt. It sucked the fun out of my heart.

For every beautiful, new experience one can have in this country, it has to be paired with 15 gift shops devoted to wringing you off every last time. It’s fucking abysmal. I was pissed.

It’s no wonder the last thing we saw before heading out was the only McDonald’s in the world with blue arches instead of gold. Underwhelming. Waste of time. A trap.

We headed back to Flagstaff for a break and a relaxing time on the eve of the big day. I enjoyed the views on the way back, but couldn’t rid my mind of the fear and loathing that comes from trying to suck in oxygen while drowning in material abundance.

I have no problem with “stuff” when it serves at least some minor purpose, and even sometimes when it doesn’t. But raking in every penny from people trying to enjoy nature just churns my insides in all the wrong ways.

When we got back, Luke, Sean and I went to a media store we saw next to the Lone Spur for a while to check out the movies, books and records. We struck out, but it was cool to see some art we hadn’t been able to find back near Oxford.

After we pulled out of that parking lot, it was time for dinner. We waited too long to eat and were real hungry.

We all went to Taco Bell for some less authentic Mexican cuisine, but I waited. I asked to make another stop at my second 2.5 star spot of the day. Riliberto’s Fresh Mexican Food. It was fast food Mexican in a town of many similarly named spots. There was a Ralberto’s (we’d go tomorrow) and a Diliberto’s. We weren’t sure why.

I entered the restaurant and only one table was full of food and Modelo. I ordered a burrito and an apple soda, and the warm and sweet cashier smiled while taking my order. I told her about my peanut allergy. She shared that she just learned her son had one, too.

We waited for a little while before she handed me my food. She stopped me for a second.

“I don’t know if you know. I talked to my son’s doctor and he said Chick-fil-A uses peanut oil.”

I was taken aback. I was used to restaurant employees being respectful, but for someone to proactively tell me one specific chain used peanut oil was … new. It was so thoughtful, and she smiled as she told me. I just so happened to already know about Chick-fil-A, but she cared about a random stranger and that was enough to fix my day up a little.

We went back to the Airbnb and Luke put on “Asteroid City.” I love that movie. I’d seen it twice already. Once in the theater and once when I made my parents watch it. It’s a film that tackles grief and shows that trying to understand life ultimately gets in the way of living it.

I ate my delicious 2.5 star food and reminded myself not to get in my own way and to enjoy the good moments, even if they’re trickled sparsely in a nation full of ephemeral garbage.

Day Six, the Grand Canyon: My Final Frontier

We were off about 8 a.m. It was the climax of the whole trip. Five days led up to this moment.

Sean drove the 90 minutes north. Exiting Flagstaff, the landscape quickly became barren. We weren’t on interstates so much as it was smaller highways. One lane each way, with few cars. It was a true Arizona desert, with miles and miles around of just dirt, sand and weeds.

There were few towns even as we inched closer, bounding down the road. We passed through Grand Canyon Junction — which is little more than just a junction. There was an airstrip and a couple of places for visitors to stay. We passed a few stores advertising “Native American Gifts.”

In the distance, the desert had started to give way to a little scenery. What later was clearly Red Butte, a stark contrast to the otherwise flat desert, came into view on the right side of the road. I saw something else on the left.

It looked like a rift in the ground, but it was miles and miles away. I thought for a moment I could see the Grand Canyon. Sean said it couldn’t be. It was too far. I later learned I was right.

Passing Red Butte, any glimpse of what I’d thought was the Grand Canyon passed. We got closer and started to drive through a town called Tusayan. It was the last town before the national park, and I hoped it would have some interesting places to eat. Maybe a museum. Things like that.

Instead, it had an IMAX theater, several tour businesses and more hotels and motels than should rightfully fit on the half-mile stretch of road. The smalltown-turned-profit factory shot my excitement for a minute.

I wanted to feel that I was getting into the Grand Canyon. I wanted that sense of awe. It was a letdown, and we hadn’t even gotten to the entrance yet.

Pushing through, I tried to ignore the miserable canyon appetizer of Tusayan. We saw the South Entrance Station. Sean shook his head at my offer to pay the entrance fee. They let us in without more than a fiveminute wait. It wasn’t even 9:30, so we beat the rush. That felt good.

We got in and drove through a forest riddled with camping stops and turn-offs. Surprisingly, we quickly found a place to park after getting to the lot. I realized within moments there were hundreds of people already there.

The canyon itself was still shrouded by restaurants, gift shops, tourist attractions and trees. I could nearly smell how close we were. My heart salivated like a dog does before dinner.

We started to walk away from Grand Canyon Village. Some of us were still tired, but I was brimming with every flavor of excitement I’d ever felt. We passed a compass pointing toward different native nations in the area. The trees started clearing up, and we began to see emptiness, but no canyon.

Just a few more trees. Just a few more minutes. A few more steps.

It emerged.

Sheer, raw, natural greatness. It went on forever. It could’ve been several miles deep. It could’ve been 300 miles across. Words can’t describe the Grand Canyon because the mind doesn’t even understand it when you see it.

It’s infinite and it’s impossible. A simple river carved a whole world into the ground right before my very eyes. I tried to see across it. Every time I panned my eyes, thinking I saw the horizon, I noticed it went even farther away from my microscopic self.

I went through my entire range of emotions in but a few seconds. All I could muster was a laugh. I tried speaking. Saying what I felt and what I didn’t understand. I just kept laughing.

I remembered seeing huge mountains in Switzerland. I remembered volcanoes in Hawaii. Moon-like expanses in Iceland.

All that’s a crapshoot compared to this.

I felt as powerful as a god and like a piece of dust at the same time.

We started to walk east along the rim, stopping every time we could see. There was a sign pointing out the distances of different visual landmarks. None of it made sense. Everything was too far. I thought I could jump to the peak that ended up being three miles away.

It just went down and down and down.

After a few minutes, and walking past the small amphitheater facing one of the wonders of the world, the fencing became sparse. There were large openings and paths forged by the footsteps of the brave and daring (or, perhaps, the stupid) out to ledges teetering above miles of death and nothing else.

I urged us all to go out. As a daring idiot, myself, I felt a calling to that place. Each one, in fact. Now, I could look straight down. My legs shook, and I laughed again. I sat with my legs dangling off the ledge, while I remembered doing so in Yosemite National Park. A walk in the park compared to teasing the reaper on this ledge.

Sarah let me use her fancy camera — which she has dubbed “Devin’s camera” despite my inability to even use auto-focus. I found a McDonald’s cup standing perfectly up on one of those ledges, in front of the sea of air and with nobody around to claim it. If that isn’t a metaphor for … you get it.

We turned back westward to head along that part of the rim. Luke looked for a rock he sat on years ago when he first came to the Grand Canyon. We ended up finding the spot but, somehow, the rock was gone.

I found a new ledge even more stupid than the first few. I was far too tempted. With her other camera in hand, Sarah told me not to go out there. I was already halfway there, and I knew she’d want to take a few pictures of me being stupid.

I plopped down, a little less carefully than on my first ledge.

Among my various selfies angled to most efficiently scare the hell out of my mom, I started to form coherent thoughts. Though, they weren’t quite within the bounds of reality.

My legs stopped shaking while I sat on the ledge, and I looked out while sitting there by myself.

I got lost in it. I got lost in its expansive emptiness. In its power. The sight burned into my retinas about as fast as I realized what I was looking at. By God, I thought for a brief moment that I could hop right off and fly.

I’d transcended to a higher plane. You’ve got to go see it for yourself. Trust that.

Sean and I tried to guess how far a hut along a path was. We never figured it out. It was only big enough to barely be registered by our unassisted eyes. It was at the bottom. Or the middle? We’d have needed to go all the way down there to find out. Perspective is non-existent when looking out over the thing.

Two hours of just staring and laughing passed. I hungered for the chance to make it at the bottom of the canyon, to explore the greatness. But, I too hungered for lunch.

We put our name in at one of the over-priced restaurants next to the rim. Wandering one of the gift shops while we waited for our table to be called, Luke and I joked about some of the terrible gifts and weird stuff in the store.

For everything unabashedly beautiful, for anything spectacular, natural and intriguing, there’s got to be a dipshit running a gift shop. Greatness is always coupled with sales, it seems.

Finally, getting our table, I ordered a bison burger and a locally brewed prickly pear beer. Neither of which was great. Together, it wasn’t worth the $43 I spent on that meal. The waiter was a nice guy who gave us ideas for things to see, though, so it wasn’t a moment totally catering to Mr. Monopoly.

We left. I was disappointed. Mediocre food next to a gift shop and it all costs more than the entrance fee to the park itself. I’m happy to spend $35 to get into a national

park. Not so much when it’s for overpriced crap. I still couldn’t figure out why everything had to be a tourist trap.

We left and started on one of the paths that led down into the canyon. The path was only wide enough for a few people, and the drop was petrifying. We kept on. Through an arch carved into the walls of the canyon, allowing us to walk not just into, but through the Grand Canyon.

I took another chance to walk out on one of the ledges that should’ve borne a sign reading “For morons, only.” Then, we kept heading down. Until the path was blocked off. Construction.

The concept art looked cool, but it took a little out of us to realize that after the 20 minutes we’d spent to get down, we had to turn right around. It was the deepest I’d get in the canyon, and I couldn’t shake the desire to just keep going.

It’s such an attractive sight. The depths. One that makes you want to throw everything away and focus solely on exploration. It finally felt like my run westward through the St. Louis Arch culminated in something. My need for exploration finally felt real. It finally felt like I made a dent.

We started our walk back up. We all started to realize how steep and taxing the slope truly was. The hike forced us to take a couple of stops along the way, despite the short length.

We made it to the top. The day passed us like a bullet train. It was mid-afternoon, and we still had to drive back to our Airbnb Flagstaff and find dinner somewhere. The culmination of 1,500 miles of driving, five days, a half dozen states, two timezones and a cramped car was about to end. We were heading down the slope at the end of the peak.

It was only about 2:30, and the rollercoaster ride was over.

I’d seen the Grand Canyon. I didn’t want to stop. As we piled back into the car and I into the driver’s seat, I remembered a moment in my favorite show, “The West Wing,” when Toby (Richard Schiff) mentions the Grand Canyon.

“You know when you go out West how they say, ‘don't miss the Grand Canyon. It's one of the few things in life that, when you see it, it doesn't disappoint?’”

Damn straight.

The drive back to Flagstaff: An epilogue, of sorts

We headed out of the parking lot, through the village, passing a local school for folks who live in and near the park, and out through the entrance. I felt angry.

All that raced through my mind was an intense desire to turn around and see every nook and cranny the Grand Canyon has to offer. We spent five hours exploring the area, and I needed at least a week of constant exploring to feel like I really did it.

I’ve been places to which I want to return, but I never got pissed at that guttural urge. I had to go back. I was silent for the first 45 minutes of the drive.

During that time, we got out of the park and we were routed a different way than we took to get there.

We found and drove through a forest, or maybe a farm, with spaced-out, tall trees. After a few curves on U.S. Highway 180, we pulled onto a long straightaway. Up above and miles and miles away was Humphrey’s Peak: a snow-coated peak resting peacefully at 12,637 feet. It’s the highest natural point in Arizona.

As I drove in my silence, everybody else chatted a little but mostly kept to myself. In my anger, I turned to the mountain ahead of me for some relief, for an answer to my frustration.

I was proud that we’d made it. We’d done so much, and, truthfully, we didn’t skimp out by spending a day at the canyon. The peace and quiet while staring at Humphrey’s Peak helped.

I kept thinking about the commercial aspect of that which surrounded the area. I was filled with rage thinking about how every good moment on this trip was coupled with an “opportunity” to spend more cash on something I didn’t need.

I felt like scum for enjoying those moments while knowing what always sits around the corner, waiting for me and my wallet.

After 20 minutes or so of driving on a straight line toward the peak, I relaxed. It’s not the Grand Canyon’s fault that there are gift shops and expensive restaurants feeding off my desire for exploration, for seeing new things. Nor is it Boulder’s, or Moab’s, or Arches’.

I found myself learning that the fear and loathing I feel toward the temporary pleasures of commercial cash

grabs is inevitable. Every truly great moment deserves to be cherished.

On this Great American Road Trip, I got to spend time with my friends and see this country for what has always made it great: the land itself. There will always be something to push us down. An election. A war. Even a strip mall.

While this was a spring break road trip with my best friends, it turned into far more than just a simple week with my pals. If anything, the week with them felt like the most normal part. I was used to spending a ton of time with Luke and Sean and Sarah and Meta. I found myself so proud of myself for having found a group of people where this just felt normal.

This trip found me in a vulnerable spot. I’ve been scared of the future. I’ve been searching for meaning in my life. I don’t know what comes next.

Bounding west down stretches of highways hundreds of miles long and seeing the greatest sights America has to offer changed me in a way I didn’t expect.

There are just a few things in this world that can’t be ruined. Even centuries of nation-building in a way that has allowed nationwide brands to taint the towns nearby to our country’s greatest national park can’t take away the impossible power of the Grand Canyon.

It has staying power. It’s taken the punches around it. Maybe that’s the trick to fighting the anxiety that comes from ever thinking about the future. Knowing there’s more to come and not letting the hard parts stop you from enjoying life as it’s happening.

Maybe the garbage piling up around us doesn’t go away knowing there are bigger things, grander things out there, but having some refuge helps.

For that one week in March, during the last semester of my senior year of college, my refuge was in the Grand Canyon. It was hundreds of miles away and a major hit to my bank account, but it worked.

We pulled back up to the Airbnb, my soul full of something I still hadn’t been able to pin down.

I went over to sit on the couch and tried to read “Antkind” for a little while. I couldn’t. I was thinking about the long road east we’d face the next morning.

50 THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2024

Design by Hannah Potts

By Riley Peters

If you asked me at 17 what I expected from my college experience, I probably would’ve told you it would feel like “Tongue Tied” by Grouplove or “Tonight Tonight” by Hot Chelle Rae. Looking back, it more resembles “Ribs” by Lorde.

I’ve been known to romanticize the past, to look back with rose-colored glasses. As nostalgia leads me through my memories of the last four years, I notice that the moments start passing faster and faster, like trees in a passing train window. Clear, unique, specific at first, then suddenly an indiscernible blur of green.

Semesters run together. Was that sophomore or junior year? Which break was that again? Remember the one time?

Memories swirl, spin and blend together.

Even with my tendency to long for days gone by, my college experience hasn’t been everything I expected, or even wanted it to be. I didn’t join a sorority, I never got an internship, I didn’t join a club sports team, I don’t – and never did – have straight As.

Still, I wouldn’t trade it. I’ve grown in knowledge, confidence and maturity. My memory of my first year self is a strange, blurry apparition who looks like me and sounds like me, but is very clearly not me.

The shift from “high school student” to “college student” is both confidence and anxiety. It’s ignorance and bliss. It’s homesickness and community.

Graduating from college is going from “student” to labelless. The past 18 years, the same label, now gone.

Back in 2019, when a 17-year-old Riley started to look at colleges, the one thing on my mind was getting out of my hometown. Dover, Ohio, population 12,000, is small and rural. I convinced myself that I wanted to be in a city. I wanted New York City, Chicago, even Columbus would do.

I wanted to be the person to “make it out” of my hometown, to be the person who left and didn’t look back. An imagined superiority over my peers in high school told me that I was that person.

I thought I would suffocate in Oxford's cramped eight-square-miles, isolated from what feels like any civilization other than Miami students.

When I fell in love with Miami, I didn’t want to admit I was wrong. I did everything in my power to drag out the process of committing, just in case.

Nick Perez, a senior political science and history major, said he didn’t tell his friends he was going to Miami.

“To me, in high school, that was the end of the world,” Nick said.

Four years later, his feelings have changed.

“I will gladly walk up and tell anyone I went to Miami, and I’d tell them it was probably better than wherever they went,” Nick said. “You can say whatever you want about the books you read, you probably didn’t have as much fun. You probably didn’t meet as many cool people as I did.”

Nick spent four years as a resident assistant, meaning he never got to live off campus.

“I say goodbye and go home and it’s empty and it’s quiet. Some nights that’s exactly what I need, and other times I’m like ‘damn,’” Nick said. “Other people don’t say goodbye and go home, they just stay with their friends. They [just] say goodnight.”

Graduation can feel like a sort of death. The end of what is supposed to be the best four years of your life. To Nick, this feels like everything is going to come crashing down.

“There’s no avoiding it. Graduation is on a certain date, and then after that I’m leaving, you’re leaving, everybody I know is leaving Oxford,” Nick said.

Nick said that his college experience is defined by the people he’s met.

“When I talk about college, I would just talk about the people I met,” Nick said. “I feel like I’ve learned more from them, stuff that’s more present in my life than a geology class I took freshman year.”

I have a list – longer than I care to admit – of regrets and things I wish I could take back.

Warnings from those older and more experienced than me fell on deaf ears. There are certain things that can only be learned by experience.

At seven years old, when my mom’s call to tie my shoes before I went outside went ignored, the sting of my scraped hands and the burn of peroxide over a busted knee might convince me to be more careful next time.

Lindey Helwagen, senior political science and environmental science student, switched out of the Farmer School of Business to the College of Arts and Sciences midway through her time at Miami.

“A school that cares this much about business is not a place I should have been,” Lindey said. “This should have never been on the list.”

Despite this, Lindey said her time at Miami has helped teach her “the ability to say no, and say ‘this isn’t for me.’”

“I was so naive,” Lindey said. “I thought I was going to get A’s in all my classes and it was going to be so easy and I was going to make a million friends and be in every club and everyone’s going to love me and it’s going to be peace on Earth every day.”

In retrospect, Lindey said her college experience can be defined as ‘messy.’

“Not messy in a fun way. Like, messy in a way where I’m looking around like ‘I don’t know how I’m going to fix this,” Lindey said. “It was a case of me just continuing to try and try and try to figure it out.”

The question of “if I knew then” is nearly impossible to answer. If I could tell myself at 18 what I know now at almost 22, my life would look completely different.

If I knew at 18 that mom can read people better than I can, I probably would have saved myself a lot of turmoil.

If I knew at 19 that actually no, not everyone thinks like that, I probably would have been diagnosed and medicated for Bipolar disorder much sooner.

If I knew at 20 that anger isn’t a sustainable emotion, I probably wouldn’t have a permanent crease between my eyebrows now.

I wish I would’ve taken school more seriously. I wish I would’ve been more involved. I wish I would’ve changed my major earlier. I wish I would’ve participated more.

Emma Guinee, a senior marketing major, is also struggling with the finality that comes with graduating.

“It’s easy to get wrapped up in saying ‘I’m graduating, so I’m leaving all of my friends and now I have zero,” Emma said. “No, you’re just making more friends in a different spot.”

While graduating from college may feel like a permanent marker into adulthood, Emma knows it isn’t that simple.

“I think ‘finding who you are’ is so generous for being 22,” Emma said. “I feel like it's so easy to be like, ‘you’re going to find out who you are and who you want to be,’ but that is ever changing and ever evolving.”

Instead, the last four years have taught her the importance of recognizing personal growth in all its forms.

“I’m more aware of how I perceive myself now,” Emma said. “Freshman year, I was a starving 18-year-old who got pissed off at people every other minute and took everything too personally.”

Not only is our generation prone to hyper-selfobservation through social media, we’re more aware of the world around us and how we fit into it than past generations.

“I mean, a big thing for Gen Z is that we were born into the repercussions of 9/11, the housing crisis, recession, and then pandemic, and then a polarizing election year, a genocide, and a polarizing election year again. And the inflation, the cost of living is unbelievably high,” Emma said. “Minimum wage is not. People make three times the minimum wage and it's not enough to live. In every stage of our lives, there’s something. There's never been a moment of peace.”

I’ve never figured out how not to wear my heart on my sleeve. Over exposed and under protected, it cuts and rips and bleeds at every brush. Every emotion I have felt has been deep, whole and consuming.

This used to be an embarrassing weakness. I used to pull at my sleeves to cover it, build walls around myself to shield it, and sequester myself to protect it. I wanted to remove it, to be cool and aloof.

I tried to fit myself into the ideal mold, which ended up as an effort to create a new person in the name of “finding myself.” I have changed in every direction, warped into every form, and tried on different personalities and styles.

Now, I feel like sediment settling in a river bed, finally calm, even, stable. Change has been a central and recurring motif to my college experience. S

Design by Hannah Potts

The weight of my first iPod Touch settled into my palm in 2012 and has never budged since.

That is, until now.

At the beginning of this semester, I mustered the conviction to delete all my superfluous apps, put my phone down and actually experience life the way it’s meant to be lived.

I don’t mean to sound like a boomer; there is nothing inherently wrong with social media, the internet or technology. I am grateful for the unrestricted access to the internet I had in the late aughts through the mid-2010s; so much of my personality and interests can be traced to the 2014 Tumblr account I ran with the intransigent fervor only a mentally ill 12-year-old could possess.

I hope it’s clear that the anti-online sentiments I express here are not coming from a place of moral superiority. The call is very much coming from inside the house. The online world has stitched itself into the fabric of our lives, and while a lot of good has come from that, it has come at a cost — a cost our generation has yet to fully grasp.

Before I quit social media, my screen time averaged anywhere from nine to 12 hours a day. It wasn’t uncommon for my total for the week to be over 70 hours. While everyone’s internet vice is different, for me YouTube was the biggest contributor.

I would wake up in the morning and immediately open the app. I’d spend anywhere from five to 20 minutes scrolling through my feed until I found a video sufficient enough to fill the silence in my brain as I got ready for the day.

I needed it.

Brushing my teeth, taking a shower, walking to class, eating meals, doing homework, even going to sleep all required something — YouTube, Spotify, a podcast — playing in my ears to distract me from my own thoughts.

I was terrified of silence.

Silence meant thinking, and thinking meant spiraling into existential dread. I didn’t want to be reminded of the passage of time. I didn’t want to confront the fact that to achieve my goals I actually had to work on them instead of just daydreaming about accomplishing them.

It was so much easier to ignore these realities by drowning myself in algorithmically curated content than it was to face my problems head-on. As long as there was enough outside noise ricocheting around my brain, I wouldn’t be able to hear the alarms blaring.

As much as I may want to sometimes, I can’t ignore reality forever. As it turns out, tricking your conscious into ignorant complacency is much easier than tricking your subconscious into it. The dread always found its way into my bones. It lingered at the base of my skull, waiting to strike the moment I let my defenses down.

In an attempt to avoid the dread, I sunk further into my phone. My brain was like a sponge, soaking in whatever information the various algorithms spit out for me. Twitter knew which posts would anger me, TikTok knew which news updates would upset me and Instagram knew what pictures would guilt trip me, all in an attempt to get me to engage — to feed the machine with my time, attention and emotional instability.

These apps thrive off the dissatisfaction of their users. And boy was I dissatisfied. Never once have I logged off one of these apps and felt better about myself or the state of the world around me.

I knew there was a problem. I didn’t want to be on my phone all day, but I couldn’t gather enough courage to do anything about it. I wasn’t the only one. In high school, my friends and I would joke about being “screenagers”

and make self-deprecating comments about how we’d “die without Twitter.”

These conversations persist even now, usually in the form of casual complaints about getting distracted from homework by TikTok or jokes about our waning attention span. Most of us are in agreement that our screen time is a problem, yet very few of us ever seriously consider changing our online habits.

Like a raccoon with its fist in a trap, all I had to do was let go to be free, but I couldn’t bear the loss. This treasure I held so tightly was hurting me — killing me — and yet letting go felt like its own death in a way. The line between the real world and the virtual one had become so muddled that giving up the latter felt like losing the former.

This was due to one simple fact: going completely offline just isn’t possible anymore.

Even after I finally changed my habits, I wasn’t able to fully disconnect. The internet had already sunk too deep, fusing with my neurons until my whole self was saturated with it — sufficiently programmed.

Instagram is the only way I can communicate with my Japanese friends, LinkedIn is (apparently) the only way a person can get a job anymore, Snapchat still holds the vast majority of my videos and pictures from high school and I quite literally need my phone to log into my school email and access my assignments.

I couldn’t just delete these accounts; not unless I wanted to delete the connection I had between myself of the past and myself of the future (as well as my connection to getting good grades).

That was the most terrifying part of having so much of my identity, personal connections and memories tied up in the iCloud — none of it is real.

One of the final things I saw on Instagram before pulling the trigger and fully purging my phone was a Reel by the creator Ashing Aisulu (@its_trashling). In the video she says, “We are living in a digital fucking dark age [...] if you’re not burning discs with your songs, movies and TV series on them, guess what? They’re gone. [...] If it’s not physical, it doesn’t exist.”

This got me thinking about just how much of our current reality is curated by our screens. As a second semester senior, I spend a lot of time thinking about the ephemeral moments I’ll never experience again after I graduate.

I get this sense of melancholic nostalgia for the present day. Each day only happens once before it’s filed away in history. One day, we as a species will look back at this time period with the same rose-colored glasses we look at past decades. When I flip through the old scrapbooks, pictures and letters my parents saved from college, or listen to them recall old mundane moments with such tender joy, I get that creeping sense of dread congealing in my gut again.

Where are my memories?

Our memories?

Sure, we have plenty of pictures, posts and archives saved on servers all around the world, but what about the little things? The things we don’t realize matter until we don’t experience them anymore. How many beautiful everyday moments have I tuned out in favor of engorging myself on my phone? What do I even do in my free time? I call myself a writer, but how much time have I dedicated to actually writing?

There are 24 hours in a day and yet I can hardly recall what I do with any of them.

The realization dawned on me like sitting on an ant hill: first, you see just one ant crawling up your leg, then you look closer and realize there have been thousands swarming around you the whole time. In this case, the ants are the hundreds of days I’ve wasted doom-scrolling.

I don’t want to look back on my life and remember how I spent my youth suspended in virtual amnesia because I was too comfortable with complacency.

The online world has stitched itself into the fabric of our lives, and while a lot of good has come from that, it has come at a cost — a cost our generation has yet to fully grasp.

The moment these thoughts solidified in my mind, I knew I had to suck it up and commit. So I did. I was worried I’d talk myself out of it if I didn’t follow through immediately, so before the doubt could fester I purged the following apps as fast as I could: YouTube, Twitter, Snapchat, Reddit and Tumblr (I kept Instagram so I could keep in touch with my foreign friends, although I restricted it with a 30 minute timer).

And just like that, I was finally free.

The day I deleted everything, I spent the walk to class with my phone in my pocket and my headphones in my backpack.

It was uncomfortable at first, especially when I realized that I was one of the only people walking without the aid of airpods or a phone. I felt awkward and anxious. I didn’t know what to do with my hands or where to look. My whole body felt out of place as it was forced to cohabitate with my empty thoughts.

I knew after a lifetime of struggling with my existential dread that it wasn’t going to go away. So, I might as well just accept it. Maybe these thoughts didn’t have to be scary; maybe I could turn them into something worthwhile instead.

I wanted to observe. I wanted to experience the walk for what it was. To listen to the wind whistle past my ears and feel the winter air chill against my cheeks in the way it always has and never will again.

I noticed so many things I had never noticed before: the miscellaneous items scattered haphazardly over office window sills, the gray clouds that hung heavy and low between peaks of passing buildings, and the twisting silhouettes of trees flushed deep and dark against them.

It wasn’t anything special, and yet it was precisely the mundaneness of these observations that made them so beautiful to me. There is so much forgotten beauty in the ordinary, the contemporary.

Ever since I got off social media, my life has been so much better. I don’t mean to sound dramatic or come across like I’m proselytizing, but I am serious when I say that I’ve felt my brain chemistry change for the better.

It’s only been about three months and yet, in that time, I’ve stopped reaching for my phone in order to appear busy. I no longer feel the need to take so many study breaks, I get less distracted and I make my bed daily. I no longer struggle to keep my apartment clean, I easily wake up earlier and — perhaps most importantly — feel much more at peace with the existentialism I have struggled with for so long.

I would list out the negatives of going unplugged, but I genuinely don’t have any. I thought I would miss out on big cultural moments but so far that hasn’t happened. Turns out if something is that funny or that crazy, you’ll hear about it in real-life conversations.

My screen time has gone down to an average of just four hours a week with my most used apps being Safari, iMessage and NYT Games. Without my phone atrophying me, I have finally found the missing writing time I’d previously lost to the digital ether.

I’ve started printing out my pictures and am planning on making a scrapbook for each year of high school and college. I’m going to do something similar with all my videos by burning them on CDs. It’s not a perfect solution — pictures fade and CDs degenerate — but at least I’ll have proof to show that I was real.

When I’m dead, I want to be survived by the fruit of my labor. I don’t want to waste the precious time I have on this earth ignoring it or ignoring myself. Shutting out your physical reality doesn’t slow down the passage of time, and it sure won’t save you from the inevitably of death.

A small part of my heart breaks every time I stop and take a look around at the people near me, moving through life with their heads curled into their phones. Together physically, yet isolated in their own hallucination of an online reality.

I’m not saying I’ve got it all figured out. I’m graduating from Miami this May and still have no idea what I’m doing next. But if there is anything I do know, it’s that I owe it to myself to take this newfound freedom and use it to my advantage.

In 2024, the weight I had been carrying for so long finally lifted. I won’t waste any more time tethered to an intangible world. Instead, I’ll look around myself to touch the world around me, listen to the voices beside me, and live a life unwasted and without regret. S

Still preparing: The trial by fire of freshman year

ByTaylorPowers

Design by Erin McGovern

I’m an over-preparer. I always carry what my friends have dubbed a “mom pouch,” keeping Band-Aids, eye drops, chapstick, Advil and other necessities on hand at all times. I purchase double of everything at the grocery store, and then I buy extra on top of that so I never run out. If I'm going to a new building on campus, I search online for the floor plans in advance so I don’t get lost.

I assumed I had over-prepared myself for the college experience. I had three years of experience taking college credit classes during high school and even more years of taking advanced classes. I graduated with a 3.9 GPA and almost perfect attendance. I was heavily involved with activities that were beneficial to my mental health and my future career.

I believed I had done everything I could. I ignored all the warnings about how demanding classes would be and how much more laborious it is to socialize and befriend others.

I had this in the bag. Nothing would stump me. How could I, an honors student with tons of friends, mess this up?

Yet, I did.

Despite that confidence, all the warnings about college were proven to be the case. The beginning of my freshman year was a struggle. I was baffled.

My ignorance of my abilities clouded my judgment. No amount of advice could have prepared me for how easy it is to become so consumed by your workload that you allow a whole semester, and your chance at a social life, to fly by.

I endured a plethora of challenges. I felt isolated, abandoned and left behind. Like everyone was cruising along on their bikes while I was scrambling to find my balance on training wheels. Like everyone could see in the dark while my flashlight batteries had died.

Homework till 10 p.m. on a Friday night, eating dinner alone in my room, breakups and struggling to make friends: My freshman year looked like a checklist of what not to do.

I could effortlessly dwell on the past, mourning the result of circumstances I had created. But if I’ve learned anything from the past few months, it's that I have so much room to grow. There is so much of myself I’ve yet to unearth.

I could plant myself down and be woeful that I wasted one of my four years at Miami. Or, I could appreciate the three more years here I have to learn, revise and improve. I could look back at my first semester and begin a transformation.

When the fall semester kicked off, I told myself the same thing I did every year: school comes first. My social life would manifest naturally through meeting new people in classes and extracurriculars.

This was the mindset that helped me flourish in high school. It couldn’t fail me now.

What I didn’t recognize was that, unlike college, I was privileged enough to see my friends numerous times every day. What that mindset resulted in was multiple Friday and Saturday nights alone, instead of spending time with friends.

One particular Friday night stands out vividly in my mind. It was around 10 p.m., and I was working on one of the million assignments I had been assigned for MJF 105. Stationed at my desk in front of my laptop, I was trying desperately to stay focused and awake.

I was alone, as my roommate had departed an hour ago to go party with friends. This situation was not uncommon for me. I hear a buzz and notice the light of my phone screen, displaying a Snapchat notification from her. I opened the photo and felt my heart drop into my stomach.

Even though it was the back of someone's head, I immediately knew who it was. My partner at the time was en route to the same party as my roommate. My partner, who definitely should have invited me, had left my messages on delivered for hours.

Tears immediately welled up in my eyes. I could hear them hitting the notebook paper as I stared at the image.

The conversation with them the next morning was not a pleasant one, filled with excuses about how last-minute the decision was and that they didn't think I’d want to go. Looking back, I understand I was not at fault. But in the moment, I wondered if I had somehow illustrated myself as someone who had no time for fun.

My heightened attention and focus on my workload altered my priorities, an issue that manifested clearly when my roommate and I found a friend group before the semester even began.

We attended a pre-semester program called Discovery Bound, which is designed to get incoming students adjusted to the campus and various resources at Miami before school starts. Through this program, we made some good friends, and eventually a huge group chat was created with everyone we met.

These friends started routinely getting dinner together. However, my attendance slowly became determined by the amount of homework I had due the next day and therefore dwindled. Every night, I would see the “What’s the plan for dinner tonight?” texts pop up, and every time I would weigh the pros and cons of attending, only to stay home.

I started the semester with the Diplomat Standard meal plan, receiving 16 meal swipes a week. I knew I’d eat a quick breakfast in my room, and I planned to eat lunch and dinner at the dining halls, but I still wanted extra meal swipes in case I decided to get breakfast with friends one morning. Yet I barely used any. Only 21, over five months, to be exact.

I fell victim to workaholic tendencies. Not only did these tendencies impact my social life, but they also impacted my attendance for a very important extracurricular to me: The Miami Student (TMS) newspaper.

I had weekly meetings to attend: all-staff on Sundays and Campus and Community on Mondays.

Should be easy, right? Apparently not.

My stress over mountains of homework paralyzed me, keeping me in my room until everything was completed. I thought there was no possible way I could spare an hour of my day to attend a meeting and pick up a story assignment.

The edits I received on my first few stories had me frozen in fear. My first article had over 90 comments; I thought I had failed my high school journalism teacher. I was the former editor-inchief of my high school’s newspaper, how could I forget to put a comma inside of quotation marks?

The embarrassment of silly mistakes and the previously mentioned stress hindered my ability to think. My TMS meeting attendance dropped as the semester went on, despite still wanting to stay involved. I love writing and there's nothing else I would rather dedicate my life to doing than telling the stories of others. But, if I couldn't submit an impressive first draft, was I even good enough anymore?

I could have contributed so much more to TMS, which I have made my mission this semester. Last semester, I only wrote four stories. This semester, I’ve written at least eight and the number continues to rise.

My first semester was filled with moments where I did too much and did too little. My scale constantly tipped back and forth, rarely finding equilibrium.

In college, I was optimistic about continuing my love for dance. My quest to find a group was a classic example of third time's charm.

My first step was to do extensive research on the Hub (did I mention I was an over-preparer?) My search yielded three options, and I signed up for their open houses at Mega Fair. After open houses for the first two organizations, I had a feeling those groups weren’t the ones for me. I had almost lost hope when I visited the open house for Miami Dance Corps (MDC).

The first time I entered the studio in Phillips Hall, I was at an open house for the first dance group I was interested in. The environment wasn't right. Everyone was too strict, too uptight, too perfect. Sirens in my mind screamed, “YOU DO NOT BELONG HERE; RETREAT QUICKLY.”

But this time, when I stepped into the studio, I wasn’t afraid. From the moment I entered, I knew this would become my group. Everyone greeted each other with such excitement and joy, ready to catch up with each other over the past three months. The routines they taught us were not made to judge our abilities. They were just for fun.

Within MDC, I have found a home and formed close friendships. I can strike up a conversation with anyone, regardless of year or level of authority. I can crack jokes with the vice president and not feel intimidated by their title.

Unlike TMS, I was strict with my attendance here. I involved myself with nine different dances and showed up to every social event. But I could have been better at forming friendships. I should have made plans with them on weekends, sent those “let's get dinner before rehearsal” texts or planned study dates.

This second semester – although still challenging – has seen a shift. I’m utilizing my meal plan more often at Bell Tower Commons. I’m showing up to TMS meetings and have joined The Miami Student Magazine. I’ve put my name in to run for an executive board position at MDC and am considering choreographing with my friends next semester.

There are still nights when I eat dinner alone in my room. I still stay up way too late completing assignments. I still stay home most weekends.

I’ve learned to celebrate my growth. I’ve learned to treasure the moments I have to be social with people on campus. I’ve learned it's OK to stay in and play video games all night with friends from back home rather than going out. I’ve accepted that not everything will play out as smoothly as I expect.

Sure, I’ll have to find a new roommate for sophomore year. I’ll have to push myself to be more social. I’ll have to respect my limits when I’m doing too much and hold myself accountable when I’m not doing enough.

At the end of the day, there's nothing I can do to change the past. A part of me is grateful for the experience. I can share my story, my accomplishments and my mistakes, in hopes that someone entering college who, like I once did, is thinking “I’ll be okay,” and won’t fall down the same rabbit hole.

I could never have ever prepared myself for how my first-year was going to unfold. And that’s OK. Maybe I need to start letting life run its course instead of trying to pull strings behind the scenes.

Maybe I don’t always need to be so prepared. S

Maybe I don’t always need to be so prepared.

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