Dear Goshen Hall,
I've never been very good at goodbyes. Something about the word hitches, and I'll become nostalgic before I've really even left. So normally, I'd walk away - I'd leave the goodbye implied, and I'd try not to look back.
But you deserve better than that, after the two years I've spent walking through your halls, sleeping in your rooms...living with you through so many good times, and the bad ones too. So today, I'm going to write you a letter.
I remember how excited I was to see you for the first time - when I received that e-mail almost three years ago, and I called my roommate to share my excitement over getting the "best" of the traditional dorms. And for two weeks leading up to that day - August 26 - when I'd start to live with you, I had all my belongings packed in the corner of my room at home. I was ready to call you home.
It didn't matter though....as I unpacked that morning, I cried anyway - missing home in a way I'd never really thought I would.
We had so many good times, Goshen... rearranging our room to make it feel bigger than it looked that first night, getting ready to go to my first party (because you know how truly nerdy I am, and college was the first time I went to a party that did not involve adult supervision). That was a fun Halloween - one my roommate and I spent a couple weeks talking about our costumes for. And that was an interesting night. But you were here when we were ready to come home, to shower the party off of ourselves and fall into bed at 3AM for (probably) the first time all semester.
I met my first college friends in your halls, all of us nervous and thinking we were the only ones who didn't know everyone's names. You were there when we finally admitted, months later, that we'd all been nervous. We'd all cried those first couple weeks, worried we'd never make any friends.
And you were there, Goshen, even after I left you for a year. You knew I'd come back, that those hotel-style rooms weren't for me, and I'd be back sooner or later. I was back, this time on a different floor. But it was still you, and I recognized the familiarity of the rooms and the tightness of the showers.
Do you remember the time I swore that you were awful - that I hated living with you, in your dusty rooms surrounded by walls too thin?
I was lying, you know. I don't...I couldn't hate you.
You were my first home away from home - how could I feel anything but love for you?
This morning, I woke up in your rooms for the last time, Goshen. I looked out the window, at the view I've cherished for the last eight months, and I remembered that I'd be looking at a different view tomorrow. And I thought I should say goodbye, in a way other than with the finality of locking the door for the last time.
<3
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