While working on my laptop at the Union today, I waited to feel a dread, a heaviness in my chest as I realized I’ll be here for another 2 years, studying in the Trophy Room or Lakefront on Langdon, using the computer kiosk, waving to people I recognize, who, like me, have apparently been unable to escape Madison’s spell. Sometimes I want to feel anxious, or feel regret, that I’m doing my graduate studies at the same place as my undergrad. People have told me it’s a bad idea, that it not only limits your experience and network, but that it’s suffocating to be in the same place for school all over again.
But I don’t feel it. Instead, all I feel is utter joy to be surrounded by familiar faces and spaces, staring at the same murals as I procrastinate from working and settling into the same chairs that held me for years, during finals and lazy days looking out the window to the lake. School starts up in a month, but already I know I made the best decision for me and my life by sticking around and getting to go to UW-Madison again.
