I’ve Known You For Half My Life

A Letter to My Fellow Kenyon Alums, Class of 2000

Seventeen and a half years ago, I was seventeen and a half years old. And I was preparing for my freshman year at Kenyon College. At that moment, I was probably getting a lot of advice like: “this is going to be the best four years of your life, enjoy it!” Back then I probably naively thought they meant something about enjoying the freedom from responsibility and getting four years to learn things you’ll never again make the time for. But looking back I have an entirely different appreciation for those four years in Gambier.

Seventeen and a half years have past since I entered Kenyon as a freshman in 1996. This second-half of my life turned me from a short boy into something a bit taller (and hopefully slightly more mature). Yet one thing that hasn’t changed since I left Kenyon is the core company I keep. These people are mostly Kenyonities. Some are friends I made at Kenyon, many others are fellow alums that became friends after college in cities like San Francisco, Boston, Louisville and New York. For some reason we Kenyonites like to seek out one another and stick together (outsiders even call us a cult). So what was the Koolaid we drank on the hill that bonds us like so?

Truth is I’m not particularly interested in dissecting the bond. And I’m sure there are other places that provide similar experiences (like squeezing eclectic minds into a fishbowl where there’s nothing to do besides trouble-making and study-learning) — experiences which promote feelings akin to ours. Yet to all those alums reading this: appreciate our strange bond by acknowledging it’s rare. We’re lucky.

My nostalgia for college has receded in recent years. I’m busy with work. Some of my Kenyon friends are busy with families. And most are busy with both. When you’re busy you forget to stop and look up, to see where you’re headed and to look back at where you’ve been. But when the realization hit after a bit of math that I’m indeed double the age as I was when I entered Kenyon, it also hit me that I’ve known you — my fellow Kenyon friends — for half of my life. And so I’m taking a minute to look up and to think back to a half-of-a-life ago: the best four years were about to begin.

Thank you. And farewell, Old Kenyon, fare thee well.