As an Individual
So I was asked to write a piece in which I reflect upon the three years of my life that I spent at this place–all three beautiful, terrible, poignant years–but that kinda seems like a lot, so instead let me just tell you about this strange dream that I had a few nights ago. In this dream, I was wandering around this huge warehouse store (like Ikea size) where all the lights were dim and there wasn't much for sale. I don't remember why, but I felt desperately that I needed to get out of this creepy Soviet-era warehouse as soon as possible. So I ran into the elevator and tried to get onto the roof, where maybe there would have been a helicopter or something waiting for me; however, when I pressed the button for twelve, the elevator dropped like a stone and plummeted me deep, deep into the darkness below instead.
When I emerged from the elevator's cold, musty interior, I found myself staring weakly into a row of white, fluorescent lights. On my hands and knees, I mustered all the strength I had to crawl out of the collapsed elevator to find myself in the Bargain Basement of the Urban Outfitters store in Cambridge. Yes! I thought to myself (I may have even said it out loud): Yes, finally! This is what I've been looking for all this time!
People who know me will tell you that I've only ever been caught shopping at Urban Outfitters once in my entire life–last summer when my friends pressured me into paying $50 for a light blue-and-white casual summer shirt that was probably made out of recycled cardboard or something, since it fell apart after I wore it outside for the first time during a light drizzle. In short, I had always felt (pretty consistently) that Urban Outfitters is just not really my look. I'm a simple man who likes clean, simple colors; at least, that's what I've always told myself, though perhaps it's more accurate to say that the whole jorty shunderwear thing is simply out of my reach. Nevertheless, upon reaching the Bargain Basement that night in my dreamspace, I experienced the deep, almost existential feeling that this is what I have been searching for.
Driven to new heights of mania, I darted from rack to rack, but soon I discovered that all I could find were cloth-y sweatshirts with pictures of cats on them and tops and bottoms I lack the vocabulary to describe. Yet for some reason, I felt the acute need to buy something; it was like my money was burning a hole in my pocket. Finally, I stumbled upon a giant bin labeled "Bags: 60 percent off." And at the top of that bin lay a single, light electric blue two-strap backpack with leather accents. Yes; that was the one. And I knew, I knew from the first instant, that it was–it had to be–the backpack for me.
I began to ascend the mountain of bags, which at this point appeared to be increasing in mass, until finally I conquered it all and held the light electric blue two-strap triumphantly in my hands like in The Lion King. Then my parents appeared out of nowhere and my mom snappily pulled a comically large red lever in the wall that collapsed the mountain of bags and sent me crashing to the floor.
"No," she said emphatically. "You not get that one, that one ridiculous, waste of money. You get serious man bag, now." She pointed to one of the thousands of identical brown leather briefcases that lay in a mound below me. At this point, I'm pretty sure I started crying.
I'm running out of words now, but I guess what I am trying to say is that, in a weird way, we all want things that maybe aren't right for us. The typical Exonian drive to be "serious" and non sibi can sometimes seem at odds with the universal human need for recognition and expression as an individual. I've got a long way left to go before I figure out exactly what this means to me and for other Exonians, but I'll let you know when I decide.