All things in transit

H an ging on my wall is a photo of my older sister and I at maybe 7 and 5 years old. Her held tilted up, she’s smiling a tooth-missing smile, and my arms are squeezed around her neck. I am grinning even more widely, cheek smushed against her face with all the force a not-quite-toddler-anymore can muster.

I’ve stared at this photo often over the past five years, thinking to myself along the way that this death-grip hug is a brutally poignant metaphor for the way I approach the good things in my life. I have thrown myself into the things and people I love with that same bear-hug strength.

Freshman year, the DP became one of those things. I loved it more than anything else at Penn — it was my safe haven, my home, my identity. For five semesters and one long — hot — summer, I lived and breathed for the DP — for better, and eventually, worse.

The force with which I committed myself to the DP was only paralleled by the heartbreaking resolve with which I cut it out of my life. It was on a phone call in an alleyway at two in the morning — emboldened by a long evening at Charles — that I finally said “no.”

Having given all of myself and then some, I realized I wasn’t actually getting a fair return on my investment. I thought in that moment that I wasn’t making the DP any better by martyring myself to it. But really, I wasn’t making myself any better. Beyond that, nothing else mattered.

It took loving and losing the DP for me to realize that it is futile to beg permanence from transience. My tendency to dig my heels into the ground and attempt to freeze the perfection of a moment for the sake of stability has led to far too many disappointments.

The biggest lesson of my college career has thus been learning when to let go — and when “good” for someone else becomes bad for me. My time at the DP was life-changing, and even though I moved on so long ago, it will always be close to my heart. But I lost sight of myself in my DP safety net, and finally cutting myself loose was both eye-opening and rewarding. Though I struggled to reinvent my life at Penn over my last three semesters, I have been lucky enough to rediscover the parts of myself that I’d lost over those first two and a half years.

Looking back at that all too tolerant 7-year-old, I am happy to know that she gave me the strength to love so loyally and never be sorry — to know that it is OK to love and lose and let go. And now, as much as I’d love to preserve what I have here in Philadelphia, I know it is time to move on. I’ll graduate just ten days before what would be your 24th birthday, and I hope what I have done here has made you proud. Whether I realize it or not, you are with me in every moment, even as our picture fades.

With that said, I want to thank the wonderful people both at the DP and beyond who lived through this with me. Dan and Ben — my Red Room compatriots — have always had a spot at the top of this list. We will always all be separately equal, together.

To the 127: Thank you for making 4015 home. To the SP: Thank you for our summer, and for sticking with me. To spawts: Thank you for adopting me, for letting me occupy your couch, for Cabo and for the all nighters. To Table 5: I quite literally could not have done Penn without you all. Cabin talk ...You are SO great. To my parents, brother and Kim: Thank you for listening to me complain about the DP every time I called, for not hating me when I didn’t call and for being there to help me find myself again. I love you.

Finally: Thank you for believing in me all those years ago. Thank you for the early days. Thanks for “If,” and for inspiring me to be my best self. Last but not least, these Vague Pronoun References (and this column) are dedicated to you — my Owen Meany and forever my Editor-in-Chief: You can take the girl outta the newspaper, but...

Rachel Easterbrook is a College senior from Lexington, S.C. and a former copy, features and online managing editor of the DP. Her email address is reasterbrook10@gmail.com.

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