Sombrilla

But recently that has changed.

I'm homesick for college.

I look back and remember the all-nighters spent at the 24-hour pancake house only pretending to study, the nights spent goofing around with my friends, thinking about that semester project I really should start—but that I'll certainly start tomorrow.

I even giggle about my performance as a young Evita in my musical theater class, where I pranced around the stage with a suitcase. My prof told me he hated the performance so much that he passed me so I would never have to take his class again.

Oh, how I miss college.

I find as I get older and the gap widens between my undergrad experience and me, I feel more connected to my alma mater. I follow the football team and I even fly a TCU flag outside my home. The person I was a dozen years ago would never recognize the person I am today.

I kind of bleed purple—and I like it.

I still have those nightmares where I realize on the day of the final exam that I never attended math class. But now I think that if I could, I would choose to make that nightmare come true if it meant going back to college and living the good times all over again. Maybe.

Or maybe I don't have to. I work at a university, and with an office at the Main Campus, I'm fully immersed in the culture, the life, the rhythm of the place. I've discovered that I don't have to travel hundreds of miles to my alma mater just to experience school pride.

Here, everywhere I look, I see orange and blue shirts. As I pass through the John Peace Library, I see students clustered in study rooms, challenging each other and then laughing it off when the stress gets too high.

I love having lunch under the Sombrilla, where the sounds of diverse cultures mingle. As students at one table play my favorite '80s songs, students at another table speak with animation in a language I wish I knew, because it really sounds like they're having fun.

Students on skateboards whiz by. Couples hold hands on the way to class. I hear snatches of conversation about physics and the most recent football game. And I feel so much pride; I feel so connected.

I feel the energy that comes from being on a thriving college campus.

So maybe I am reliving my college days after all, but in an even better way. There are only deadlines, no exams. Even better, there's very little math.

And my closet is becoming crowded with all the orange and blue shirts and paraphernalia I am accumulating. I take my sons to football games, and every one of us has our special game-day shirt. We regularly chant "Go 'Runners" and even my 3-year-old knows the Roadrunner hand sign.

So, maybe I bleed orange and blue, as well as purple.

I think I need to buy another flag.

Saludos,

Lety Laurel