Nashville in July

In the middle of July, I went down to meet Superfood in Nashville, Tennessee. We all drove long

hours to meet up in the land of Johnny Cash and country rock. We ate fried chicken, mounted a

14-person bike-bar, explored downtown Nashville, and randomly sang for a woman on her

bachelorette night. We sang and laughed so hard, Christy literally couldn’t speak the next two

days. We floated down a river under the hot sun with cold beer, sandwiches, and half-melted

chocolate. We stayed up all night playing ridiculous board games and laughing until we couldn’t

breathe. Superfood was such an important part of my Georgetown experience, giving me so

many wonderful memories. and I felt incredibly lucky to return to it.

When I was a student, many things felt temporary, lasting only as long as I was at Georgetown:

the crappy dining hall, the unpaid internships, the freedom of not having a defined work day,

being surrounded by attractive people my own age… none of it would last past graduation.

My post-grad future always loomed with the knowledge that in the vast possibilities of the

future, things would be forgotten, lost, and kept more as a keepsake from college days than as a

part of my adult identity. Superfood seemed like something I would lose after college. Sure,

there is homecoming, and I can attend alumni events, but I believed distance, work, and new

beginnings easily superseded mere a cappella group bonds.

In the goodbyes of graduation, the uncertainty of when I would see my close friends again gave

me an anxious fear of losing what had been so important to me at Georgetown. Superfood had

been a pillar of my social life. Even in the summer and breaks in between, I would look forward

to returning to our a cappella community. I feared it would be more difficult for us to come

together again. It would be harder for me to see them, so it would happen more rarely.

I realized just in the two days we were together that the connections between us will not merely

be relegated to a “college-thing”. The importance of Superfood, and the friendships within it, will

continue beyond graduation. This weekend, I saw that we all knew this to be true. We all implicitly

agreed we were important enough to each other to drive from all over the country for a mere two

days together in Nashville.

Although graduation seems like a marked turning point where suddenly you are an adult with a

brand new start, the reality is more blurred than that. The new start comes with a startling

loneliness if you forsake too much of your past. The friendships important to you before you

graduated are equally, if not more important, afterwards. I personally realized more than ever how deeply I treasure those relationships, and how rare and special they are.

I love the people in Superfood like they're my family and I miss them like my family. I hope that

no matter how much distance separates us in the future years, we always remember and treasure

that connection. At the end of the trip, we said our goodbyes once again. D.C., Denver, London,

Los Angeles, Iowa… we will be far apart for the near future. It pained me to say goodbye once

again, but I did not have the same fear I had as I graduated. I knew with stronger certainty

Superfood would continue to be part of my identity. My friendships will survive the years of

separation. Now, instead of fear, I can feel only gratitude for the luck that brought me to

Georgetown and to this amazing group of people.

P.S. I also bought some awesome cowboy boots.