Aug. 20, 2022. 6 p.m.
“Settled in? Welp, see ya in October!” was what I thought my dad said, walking off to the car. The next second, I was standing alone on a humid, cool summer’s night in front of AMR I. Alone.
Based on the days I’ve sobbed at week-long summer camp, I expected the transition would be harsh for a homebound boy like me. Heck, not even half of what I had to take on had really crashed down on me. Careers. Projects. Laundry. Research. Keeping a clean room and studying and finding new friends and studying and possibly your first date. All crammed into four years.
From the stories, I assumed that to thrive in college, you had to be a non-stop happy machine. You needed to be at the big games. You had to attend the formals. You had to head out to bars, win every scholarship, keep up a 4.0 and become the single most connected person on campus. You had to live and not just exist, which is easier said than done.
But to quote one Veronica Sawyer, “If you were happy all the time, you’d be a game show host,” and we all know primetime is out of style.
The weird thing is, I didn’t crumble or fret at the fact that my protectors for 18 years suddenly jumped ship: I felt... calm. I looked up at the crimson-red sky as the horizon expanded. The air got cooler, my breathing slowed and the clench in my stomach suddenly ceased. The world got a bit wider, but I didn’t quite see the big picture that day.
Flash forward. Dec. 21, 2025. 10 p.m.
I returned home from a four-hour drive from Binghamton. We hoped to see stars upstate, but the clouds covered most of the show. That’s when my eyes looked up above my suburbia, where we (ironically) saw a partial view of the twinkling lights we sought over the weekend. It had been a while since I saw the sky, but the gaping abyss looked as expansive as ever, even larger.
I continued to stare into the endless sea of stars, a sea of dust, peppered on a dark mast. You expect each day of college to be a supernova, a barreling rocket of explosive change that burns bright for a millennium. In reality, each day was more like a speck of dust.
The speck of hot pot with your roommate after a long day of work.
The speck of helping a friend master organic pathways and mechanisms.
The speck of long, dreary nights in the (former) Milton S. Eisenhower Library and the victory lap of walking out of your last final.
The speck of nabbing your first perch at the lukewarm shores of Loch Raven.
The speck of weighing your animals and watching them remain healthy across the week.
The speck of a last-minute Christmas Village adventure, warm wine streaming down your throat.
The specks of attending a live performance, walking down the National Mall, watching Marty Supreme at midnight, catching an orange furry friend strolling down the street, wandering the Rotunda while the shuttle arrives, seeing the trees bloom in springtime... even if those specks aren’t whisked by the algorithm or broadcast around the world.
That speck snowballs into the other 1,456, which implodes across a canvas. It’s dusty, cloudy and no jigsaw piece, but it settled there anyway. And now, you work with what you have, stitching together the story you never thought you held in your hands.
As the sky widened that night, I finally saw the painting that I had managed to muster. One of mundane mornings, seasonal slumps, quiet acquaintances and small moments of triumph. Of academic achievement and growth by your own terms. Of the four years that rushed by so fast, you hope to hold onto them for the next four.
I looked at a masterpiece of my own making, not the perfect pictures of the past. I expected the sun would set too fast, to leave me without a glimmer of what I was meant to become.
But here I was with my self-portrait: a little speck of dust floating in the forever unknown.
Maxwell Rho is a senior graduating with a degree in Behavioral Biology and a minor in Writing Seminars from Manhasset, N.Y.
