It must be something in the atmosphere that made it possible, but the fact that we were leaving in two days didn't matter. The roof was silent after the noise of the dance. The darkness was alluring. The sky was black and starless. And it didn't matter. Nothing mattered.

And perhaps that's just the way things were and never will be. And perhaps I'll never experience something like the Duke Talent Identification Program, TiP, again. Or perhaps I will. Perhaps some things could have worked out better. But they didn't. And it didn't matter. Nothing mattered.

So maybe the dark was comforting rather than frightening. And maybe I cared enough not to care. Or maybe it was just the people, and feeling the joy of others. And maybe it was knowing that some people were worse off than I was, and I could help them. Maybe it was enjoying my class, reading books that interested me, or having lunch-time philosophical discussions. Maybe it was making great friends, and spending as much time as possible with them. Maybe it was the fact that we were limited to the campus and needed to spend all of our time together. Or maybe it was just the darkness, and the air, and the night. But I felt like I could fly. I felt like I could just jump off of the roof, fall straight down, and never hit the bottom. I felt like I could return to the dance, and watch people and laugh with them and at them and grin and dance. I felt like it didn't matter. And it didn't. Nothing mattered.

My class was one of the integral parts of the entire experience at Duke TiP. I took a class called Monsters in the Modern Imagination, and we discussed and wrote about various books on monsters. Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Frankenstein. The Metamorphosis. Beloved. The Turn of the Screw. But even this class, which took up a large part of each day and was almost always enjoyable and intriguing, didn't mean as much as the people. I think there's something about the type of person who goes to TiP that makes them different. It's the type of person that will spend three weeks taking a class that they get no credit for, learning and working for nothing but their own desire. It's the kind of person who is willing to spend three weeks of their summer away from home, away from friends, and still have fun. And almost everyone does. I knew no one who didn't enjoy themselves, who didn't wish they could stay longer. And that may not matter. It could be that nothing matters.

But even that's a lie. Everything mattered and everything was meaningful. There are so many who made TiP meaningful for me, from my teachers to my friends. And I may never talk to most of them again.

And that was the hard part, the part that really smashed the atmosphere. Sitting in the airport, alone, waiting for my plane at 6 in the morning, watching missionaries planning a trip to whatever island they were going to, and looking at pictures from TiP. Trying not to fall asleep and miss my plane. It was then that I realized, truly, that I wouldn't see most of those people again. They exist solely in pictures. People who have emails and phone numbers that I didn't get. People who I didn't know so well. People who I don't even have a picture of. And I realized that TiP was over, completely and utterly, and that I'll never return in the same manner. It will never be the same. Not at all. And that means something. It means something that I miss it, even if I was so happy to return home and see my friends and sleep in my own bed in an air conditioned house. Despite the joy I felt at returning home, the grief that I felt over leaving is important. And it does matter. Everything matters. One just has to remember that. Because memories are all we have left, about so many things.

Print this page.