As I write this I’m not completely sober - a not unusual quality for a twenty year old, on a Friday morning, in a country without a drinking age. My life feels more in disarray than it has in a long while, and I can tell every single person who reads this, that I “ugly”-cried on a curb last night. I wiped my nose on my sleeves, had people adjust my shirt to keep me contained in it, and wondered if it could be possible to ever regain sobriety the same way that I had had it before. I felt separate, alone, and unjustified in my existence; I believe in that moment that I wanted, just so badly, to be good enough for somebody that has never been right for me, never could be kind to me, and perhaps never wanted me in the first place. I cried for every moment of “maybe” and for “absolutely-not” that I should have said in the wrong times but forgot how to access. These are the kind of admissions that someone calls “raw” when talking about a piece of writing. It’s the kind of thing which men and women (who are more adult than I am) look at quietly, and which makes them remember the curb that they had that night on. This is that night, where I both embarrassed myself and made decisions that my sober mind would not let me out of. Perhaps, like me, these adults cried, or perhaps they flew. Perhaps they passed out drunk nearby and waited until the sunrise woke them just long enough to fall back into the reality that they had so briefly tried to escape in their alcohol stricken states. The night was a mauve mixed with purple and indigo, and it was the kind of night where you know exactly how much ethanol you’ll consume before you touch your first glass. Last night I wanted to find the place where my feelings felt more like objects, and my hands were convinced that, in their inebriated states, they could graze over the sanded and smoothened outsides until each feeling would be understood in its own context. The chilled curb still reminisced about the sun that warmed its skin that afternoon, and it was telling jokes to the flowers which bloomed behind me, and I was crying, on this curb, after coming out of an empty bar with two girls who had every excuse to leave me there. (Yeah, that’s where this is going.) This article is an open farewell, and an expression of gratitude to a community that has been made up of stories like mine of non-descript curbs, and drunken hugs that made calling your mother seem less appropriate (though I still may). I ask myself often enough now-a-days how I go about letting go of something that I never had grasp of, how my fingers unclench around the trigger of unhappiness despite never knowing they were in control of pushing it. I wonder this over drinks, when my roommate isn’t home and when I can get away with sitting in front of the full length mirror half dressed, and mostly undone. I question the motives I engage with, and cry a few times a week mostly because I know that I will all at once be stepping out in the world, having gotten exactly what I wished for, and wholly afraid of what the world may hold for me once the door behind is shut. I recognize the fear in my friends as we push out through the cracks in the walls, seeping from our carelessly constructed lives and into experience. Something about NYU Shanghai’s class of 2017 drew me in when I thirsted for courage, for newness, for openness, and most importantly, for intimacy. I will be moving forward and away, as will you all, and it is the existence of this community’s intimacy that makes me most sad to go. I know that we have all had similar experiences to mine; as a class we’ve accepted that nobody talks about the time known as “orientation” (Who needs to mention Bar 88?) without prefacing it with a subtle understanding that judgement has no place here. Meanwhile we retell moments so far away we can call them glorious with impunity at the same time as feeling an incredible nostalgia for places we’ve never been to, and things we’ve never had. To me, in these state, it has seemed that most of our dearest friendships were made over the effects of fake alcohol and of sober responsibility. Nevertheless, as you all prepare to say our final goodbyes, pack our belongings, pass them down to freshmen, save up our cash for traveling while abroad, and fret over the futures that we hold so refreshingly dear to our hearts, I hope you know you have been special. I want you all to remember the next time that you’re sitting on a curb, another NYU Shanghai classmate is only a text away. Now this is not to say that you should not branch out, should not meet new friends, the best of whom will take you home when Europe seems to spin, and the street lights in New York City seem more like fairy lights wrapped around a spiraling Christmas tree. But rather that if you should find yourself, like I did, feeling the homesickness, loneliness of expat-syndrome, and regret of decisions made in a different, once-upon-a-time life, then you can always call on a fellow classmate to channel a sense of safety in a world where so few things stay the same. You have all been so wonderful, and maybe this is a function of writing somewhat drunk (I heard Hemingway did it), but more likely, this is genuine gratefulness for the acts of kindness that I have been shown, and the friendship that I have been given here. There are not many other places in the world where being drunk on a curb means making new, lifelong friends as they take care of you, wipe your tears, and taxi you home. There are not many communities in which you can feel utterly at ease all the while knowing that your worst moment has been erased from documentation, and kindly smoothed around the edges to include the love that you should have for yourself, and the kindness extended in the face of a mutual sensation of being lost at times. This lostness which has led to bouts of incredible depression was made mutable by the hands of friends, a lesson in life we relearn when the times are rife with reasons to be drunk, and sorrow to pack away into a suitcase. In the end I came here because I needed a community of people that would take care of me as I grew from vulnerability and into strength, and into womanhood. I needed friends that I could call upon to pretend to play pool with me, to split drinks with me, and to understand that occasionally all of this foreignness, stress, and fear manifests in the ways which we choose to fall apart. In this sense, I recognize that letting go of the control that I never had is as feasible as seeking a friend for the aftermath, and a bottle of water for the next morning. Yet, it is also as painful as the world shattering on a stoop, stopping in mid swirl on a curb, and may occasionally smell like your bathroom floor after coming home on the rocks. I found refuge in a community of six-hundred-students all of whom gave me reasons to smile, to share myself and my talents, and built me up when I needed it most. For that, I am most sad to go, but happy to have been here. This open good-bye has ended, and I’ll probably fall asleep soon. Still, it was something that I had been struggling to write for quite sometime. Occasionally all one needs is a crisis to spur creativity, friends to reassure you that the pieces can still fit together, and a few drinks to regret. I wish you the best of luck, NYU Shanghai Class of 2017, many thanks and may joy be with you on your journeys. However, if it’s not, you’ll always have us to fall back on because, at the end of it all, the world is full of stoops and reasons to cry, and full with friends whose shoulders just make the most sense. This article was written by Open Goodbye. Send an email to [email protected] to get in touch. Photo Credit: Jeremy Hissong