Just like old times, I’m pitter-pattering at the Johnson Learning Center at Middlesex College on a Monday afternoon. I’m heading for a small box of free pencils, so I can work on this print-out crossword puzzle that the college leaves copies of for bored students. Probably. I don’t know, I’m not a student anymore. I’m waiting for Yovanny, who is a student. I’m going to sit at this table by some windows while he makes a tutoring appointment. I’m so glad he asked me to hang out on campus. I am so nostalgic for this place. I love finding windows to longingly look out of.
The 2024 election is about to happen, but it hasn’t yet, so I’m feeling a familiar rush of Clinton-esque, “fight song, take back my life song” optimism. As such, I will Pokémon Go to the polls tomorrow, and text that exact reference to my brother after I vote. I will say it ironically, but it will not be funny either way. It will be even less funny at 11pm. I won’t have jokes to make on Wednesday.
“Just like old times” means 8 years ago. I was on this same campus, this same day, in 2016. What nobody ever tells you when you turn 27 is that you sometimes become the oldest 19 year old on campus. I fill out the crossword clue “Singer DiFranco” with more pomp than is accounted for, because I know the answer is Ani, and I’m proud of it. I remember exactly how she sings the first ffffuck you in “Untouchable Face.” I remember the first time I sang along, and who my ffffuck you was for. I look around the room full of faces younger than mine, thinking I must be the only one here who felt the angst of the 90s. I was born in ‘97, so I must have been a grungy baby.
Yovanny is looking around the room for me. I rush up to him, pencils in one hand, and quarter-finished crossword in the other. He has work to do at the computer lab, and I am very good at pretending to be productive, so we’re going together. I’m fighting for my life to not brag about knowing this Ani DiFranco clue, but I hope it comes up naturally instead. It doesn’t. I follow close behind him out of the building, but I’m 7 inches shorter, so it takes some effort. He stops so I can catch up, and I stop to let nostalgia catch up to me. As I walk behind Yovanny, nostalgia walks close behind me. I always keep it at my side.
On Wednesday, it will feel a lot like the past I try to keep away from. When I wake up, I will remember how I walked to campus, 8 years ago, tail-tucked and closeted. Just like old times. I will stay in bed for hours. I will draft a text message to my favorite poetry professor. It will say,
“I wanted to say hi, and that I hope you are well, relative to the election news. It’s having me think a lot about the work I would bring in for your classes under the first Trump term, and what it meant for me to feel safe enough in that academic space to be gay, sarcastic, scared, petty, and angry without boundary. I’m bracing what it will mean to have his second term go on into my 30s. And seeing that my writing continues to be the most self-grounding thing I have, I wanted to thank you because of how much motivation I still hold onto after last taking workshop with you.”
I will be too sad to send it. I will remember how it felt to come out at 19, scared but unabashed. I still bite my fingernails like I used to, and they’ll be bleeding on Wednesday. Still scared and still unabashed. I will fill out crosswords and fill up with sentiment. I have worse skin and worse work ethic. I don’t think I’m poetic, and I know I’m not wise. I’m obsessive-compulsive and obsessed with the passage of time. I will walk beside my friends and let nostalgia walk beside me.
It takes a lot of tenderness to keep my head above water. It will be what I need to make it through each week. “This, too, shall pass.” This, too, shall be the past. Just like old times.