A critical mass

Less than 24 hours after finishing my final college assignment, I experienced the first migraine headache of my life. I learned something valuable during this experience: in order to acknowledge that I am undergoing a transition, I quite literally need to be slapped across the face.I’ve always been the type of person who cannot process that something will happen until the moment it actually happens. See the example below.I am also told that I am easy to spot on the street due to the distinct way that I walk, or rather bop and meander, completely unaware of my social surroundings or spatial orientation. I almost never take the same path more than once in a day. I like to think that this is because I am still very intent on processing my experience here that I even do so each time I walk from point A to point B.I wish I could tell you that with each step, I’ve arrived at a crystallized understanding of my experience here and what I will do with it in my life beyond the Gates, but there is still a lot I need to process and experience. What I can share with you is this:It’s normal to be nostalgic about Brown when you are about to graduate, but I’ve been actively reflective about Brown since before I even got here. From the moment I arrived at Brown, I tried to capture, frame, and consciously craft my memories before they even happened.I arrived to my first class of college 35 minutes early so I wouldn’t miss any part of the “first class” experience. I even took a picture of the lecture hall (shout-out to List 110). To my dismay, I was the only person there for a solid 30 minutes.My first Blog “bonding"—a semi-regular gathering of Blog staffers involving *friendship-building* activities—was a costume-themed beer pong tournament. I showed up clad in an impressive Paris Hilton costume (faux fur coat, high heels, 10 pounds of make-up, etc.) because I wanted to wear something hilarious and memorable. I arrived humiliated, wishing that someone had told me that everyone else would show up in a T-shirt and jeans.I don’t remember walking through the Van Wickle Gates because I was too busy trying to take pictures to remember it.This desire to curate perfect memories and create a sense of nostalgia has resulted in me dreading the end of Brown since the beginning. I vividly remember having genuine fear for the seniors when I was a freshman—I could not possibly imagine a point in my own life where I'd have no other option but to look back on my time at Brown.While this nostalgia is a beautiful thing, it can also be suffocating. This rose-colored lens provides me, and many Brown students, with a readily accessible mechanism to forget about the bad things that happen here. By painting Brown as the “happy school,” we minimize the deep and profound trauma that takes place on this campus.Things have happened at Brown that have made me feel powerless and destructively silent.I know that I am not alone. Brown has a deeply rooted history of exploitation, oppression, and trauma. Brown is nowhere near close to being a safe space for all of its students.My starry-eyed vision for Brown was endearing, overwhelming, and painfully misguided; however, a part of me is clearly still unwilling to shake it off. Whenever I see a prospective student, I become an effervescent caricature of myself, willing to do whatever it takes to convince them that Brown is perfect. The whole thing feels like a bizarre performance. But, I still can’t stop myself.This nostalgia permeates so many of the things we do here and often prevents us from seeing the necessary steps for improvement. In my time as Editor-in-Chief of BlogDailyHerald, we made an important decision to break from the Brown Daily Herald in order to launch The Blognonian. This decision was a product of tough conversations that we've had for a few years and it wouldn’t have been possible without the incredible support of the Blog alumni behind us. That being said, while this decision to create a more inclusive platform for student journalism had us teeming with excitement, it also conjured immense fear about disrupting the status quo.Leaving BlogDailyHerald meant that we had to leave a site that was the culmination of current students' and alumni's collective efforts over the past six years; we invested tremendous amounts of time and energy into building a brand and a platform, and poured our minds and our hearts into making an accessible and hard-hitting source for campus news. In making this move, we risked the possibility of BlogDailyHerald continuing to run under the same name with the infrastructure we had built, but without acknowledging that its entire former staff quit. We feared, for good reason, that if we were to create a new publication, we would lose the momentum we had worked so hard to build.Here’s where the story gets reassuring. Launching The Blognonian has been the most pivotal thing that the Blog community has ever done. My fearless Blog successors are thriving in the most beautiful way. They’re exploring questions of who should be allowed to speak on Brown’s campus, interviewing social change-makers, and equipping students with the knowledge to navigate inclusive language, all while sharing where Brown’s Bachelorxes are hiding. While I am almost completely out the door, I feel so secure in knowing that Blog will continue to be an improving iteration of itself, thanks to the incredible people who hold it to the highest standard. To the future of The Blognonian: I watch you with immense joy, pride, and love.This experience with The Blognonian has helped me realize that while this school may have more problems than I, or any one of us, can address, it is the communities and the spirit embedded within this campus that make me proud to be here. I’ve found so much strength in the impassioned, driven, and insightful people who make this place what it is and foster spaces for Brown students to feel valued and loved. It's through these supportive communities that we are able to build the critical mass necessary to make a positive impact on this campus.I will graduate from Brown with a critical nostalgia: I’ve forged strong and empowering relationships with a number of my professors and have totally lacked relationships with others. I’ve joined communities where I felt deeply supported and others where I felt completely out of place. I’ve had my absolute best and worst memories here. I will forever cherish this place, while taking it for exactly what it is.As I leave Brown, I will continue to aimlessly meander for a least a while without a defined direction. If I have learned anything from my time here, it's exactly in these moments—full of new routes for exploration—when things get interesting.Charlotte Bilski has been writing for Blog for 4 years and is an Editor-in-Chief Emeritus.