That sounds entirely dramatic and kind of badass. What I actually did was steal some food from the Amherst Class of 2001 reunion tent and roll up to the 2006 tent gnawing on some pork ribs. It was lovely, classy, and one hundred percent true KB style.
No one loves their alma mater like Amherst alums love Amherst College. (Just ask our endowment. Or Marshall Nannes. Or anyone who's gone to an Amherst reunion who did not actually attend Amherst.) Seriously—this is true of every Amherst reunion I've ever stolen a pork rib from—there is nothing but love on that campus from start to finish. It's even good to see the peers who you hated with a blazing passion. I mean, you definitely still hate them. (You DEFINITELY still hate them.) But there's something more important going on than all the horrible things they did or said to you: it's that we all had this shared experience. Most of us were pretty emotionally homeless, yeah? That seems to be the default for adolescents. But I'm pretty sure we all started to find a home once we got to the college on a hill.
My fifth reunion a few years ago was pretty great for exactly one reason: I was hotter than I'd ever been in my life. I was living in Vegas, which means I'd actually learned how to do eye makeup and dress myself. I'd also lost about forty pounds through a combination of major surgery, anxiety, and a healthy diet of Xanax, raw cookie dough from Fresh and Easy, and sugar-free Red Bull. And I had this BOMB orange dress, in which I now just look like a big-tittied Halloween cupcake. So naturally, when this weekend rolled around, I was nervous. A friend asked me why I was so anxious about seeing a bunch of people from an entirely different lifetime, and yet another asked me who I was exactly trying to impress as I was scowling at myself in the mirror, trying on eighty-seven different outfits to find just one that screamed, "IMPRESSIVE."
Here's the deal. Amherst College alums are successful. Period. Amherst alums are not fucked up, psychotic, or really actually broke. Amherst alums come to their 10th reunions with jobs and life partners and babies and a clear path ahead of them. I lack pretty much all of that. And yes, of course, I know that this is a gross assumption and that none of us really know what the hell we're doing and that we all have issues and none of this is actually real or reasonable to believe. But that common sense doesn't take the nerves off. (Frankly, I think if we didn't have these ridiculously high expectations of ourselves, none of us would've been at Amherst to begin with.)
What did, in fact, take the nerves off? The camaraderie. It's been a long time since I felt as safe as I did last night, sitting in the midst of these people who did—do—love me. They don't even know me all that well, but they've already seen a core element of me and they've accepted it, simple as that. The folks who were seniors when I was a freshman were there this weekend. Sam took care of me during my brief yet wretched tenure in my a cappella group. I remember him lending me his car so I could go to a doctor's appointment. It was the first time anyone had ever lent me their vehicle, and I was amazed that he thought I could be trusted. Raul was the very first upperclassman to bother to connect with me. We'd talked during my freshman orientation, and I remember feeling so relieved and fortunate that some of the kids from my floor had connected with him and that we had such a big, good personality on our side. The girls who taught me to play rugby freshman year were tearing up the dance floor, and everyone who I saw as a leader as soon as I set foot on campus was thriving. Really? Everything was right.
It's not just that Amherst is home. It's that these people are home. These are the types of hearts that are home for me.
I live here now. I live here still. Most everyone at reunion told me they were jealous that I live here. There was a lot of, "Omg, is your life amazing now?" and "I wish I could come back. I'm trying to find a way back."
By contrast, very few people I met in Las Vegas understand why I wanted to come back. One person told me I was "pussying out of life and running home to Mommy." Someone else said something like, "Oh, I guess you couldn't stand to be around all us plebeians, what with your fucking rich bullshit Amherst College degree." True friends in Vegas say, "I miss you. Come home."
I have to say something now that I restrain myself from saying to them, because it seems like it's harsh: Las Vegas is not my home. And I am very grateful to say that I know it never will be. It is harsh. It is a very brutal reality. But home does not treat a person the way that those years out West treated me.
I do miss my apartment. I miss the weather. I miss my dog. I miss the mountains and I miss the drive to LA. And I miss the real friends I made there, of which there are many. But, to be frank: some bad shit happened to me out there.
So. Maybe I did want to pussy out. Maybe I couldn't stand to live the way I lived, watching the same Family Guy episodes over and over until I finally fell asleep because even Lois Griffin whining was more soothing than the loudest of the real voices I heard there. Maybe I wanted to be treated like a person worth working with, worth remembering. Maybe I wanted to get paid or at least get credit, maybe I wanted to have a voice, maybe I wanted feel as though I had control over my own future. Maybe I wanted to feel like I could open my mouth without having entire relationships and careers come crashing down. Maybe I didn't want to wrestle addicts and cruelty or have shit stolen from me or get fucking slapped around or face life-altering diseases or even just date someone who was so willing to settle on life that they panhandled in the desert for fun. BAD. SHIT. Dear Jesus and Tony Marx, get me away from all those plebeians. (But actually: the kind of person who chooses an education like Amherst is not the kind of person who thinks it's a brilliant idea to panhandle. Call me a fucking rich pretentious bullshitter if you like.)
But also, maybe I wanted to like myself. Maybe I didn't want to be walked on and maybe I didn't want to be abused. Maybe I just wanted to be okay.
It is exhausting. Wanting those things, putting on the game face, trying to make yourself so self-possessed that you do actually deserve those basic human rights.
As safe as I felt this weekend, as happy as I was, as much as I knew with my whole self that nothing would go wrong this weekend because it couldn't possibly, it can't with that much love so close—one can only summarize one's life and scream "IMPRESSIVE" so many times, even in the best of situations.
I told the truth all night, I really did. And it's not unimpressive. I live here now. I didn't stay for all these years after graduating—I left and went to Las Vegas, and I didn't like it, and I came back. And I do theater and I love it, I do it because I love it, and I don't do anything else. I work in a bookstore. It pays a bill. I live alone with my cat. No, I'm not married, and I genuinely love being single. Yes. This is as it should be. Very, very much so. I don't know that I'm happy (who is?), but I'm where I should be, I think.
But I hit a wall last night as I was talking to a guy I hooked up with literally ten years ago and have had no other actual connection or conversation before or since. I hit that point where I didn't feel like just smiling anymore. I've been putting on the heavy duty game face since I moved to Vegas. So? I didn't bother.
Frankly, if I saw this dude on the street I would not recognize him. (Thank the powers that be for name tags, because that entire encounter would have been way more awkward if he hadn't had one.) He asked me how I was, and I told him all of the above. And then, I told him that I didn't just dislike Las Vegas—I loathed it. I told him that the worst things that have ever happened to me happened in that city with people I didn't understand, and I told him I was scared and am still scared. I told him that it all changed me in a way that I hate. I told him the truth.
What's tricky about this is that no one wants to hear this shit. The general population is not interested in sob stories and insecurities. People at gatherings, Amherst or not, want to hear that your life is impressive. They want to hear that you are successful, and then they can tell you that their lives are impressive and successful too. It's that thing we all do in polite company, and of course we do. In these kinds of situations, people ask us how we are and they don't want to hear "bad." Lord, if every alum I encountered this weekend told me about the worst thing that had ever happened to them, I'd be lulling myself into a semi-permanent slumber with Alex Borstein's best squawking for the next year at least.
But you know what? It was easy to tell this one guy about the maybes and the backtracking and the nevers and the awful and the fear. And he accepted it warmly, and then he told me some of his scary truths. Then we high fived. Then the DJ started playing "I'm Real" and all serious conversation was over, because I turn into a monster when Ja Rule asks what his motherfucking name is.
When I see that alum in another five years, I will pray for more name tags and hope that his face doesn't change too much. I am entirely certain that I won't recognize him. Again. But I will recognize that he is a kind of home.
I know, of course, that Amherst has its flaws, some of which run very deeply. I know that a lot of those flaws have come to light in recent years, and I know that a lot of them relate directly to me and others of my demographic. And God, the school is named after a genocidal maniac. That's probably half the damn problem right there.
Nevertheless. In high school, when it came time for me to choose a college, I was desperately torn between a few options. I finally point-blank asked the guidance counselor what he would choose for his own kid. He said something I'll never forget: "You can go to Oberlin or Bates or Vassar or any liberal arts school and get a great education that would suit you. You can do the same thing at Columbia or another Ivy League. But in all my years of doing this job, I've only found two schools that will give you an entirely unique experience. One is Princeton. And one is Amherst College."
I find home in these flawed and yet lovely hearts, and I know with all of mine that he was right. Terras irradient, my friends. May light shine on your world in the way that these people have shone on mine.
