So there it went.
I was walking down the Lawn with my friend Alison on Thursday night. We were getting over the fact that we had just eaten dinner in the Rotunda.
Yeah. That's Right. We're just that cool.
Anyway, the night was warm and clear. A few people had their doors open as we walked down the Lawn away from the Rotunda. We talked about how this year just seems to have disappeared -- a conversation I've been having a lot lately -- when we heard rumbling in the distance.
Now, I'm a sucker for scenery. Usually the sight of the Lawn at night alone is enough to reduce me to a sappy, soppy, slightly sugary mess. But the sight of fireworks in the distance nearly killed me. It was straight out of a Freddie Prinze Jr. movie.
"So, you wanna make out or something?" I asked Alison, the hypnotic whites and blues and greens exploding in the distance.
"Nah. Meghan probably wouldn't like that."
"Yeah. You're probably right."
So we walked back to the dorms.
It was the most unromantic romantic moment of my life. And it was the kind of moment I could have only experienced with a good friend. An old friend. A friend who feels totally comfortable talking to me in her pair of (ridiculous) polar bear pajamas while I write a paper.
I don't know if college is supposed to be a series of these moments crammed together into one four-year span of our lives, but sometimes it feels that way. Sometimes you don't feel it when they happen -- sometimes they hit you full force, when you least expect them.
Say, for example, as you lay face down in a frigid kiddy pool filled with goldfish on a Friday night.
Just an example...
Maybe it will hit you on the Corner at Qdoba eating a delicious, delicious chicken burrito. Maybe while you're riding down Rugby Road on a Saturday night in the back seat of your friend's 1972 Oldsmobile convertible. Maybe while writing a column for The Cavalier Daily in your underwear on an unseasonably warm night.
Again, just an example.
You might be smoking a cigar with your suitemate on the balcony of your dorm talking about nothing at all at four in the morning, or choking down 22 scoops of Ben & Jerry's in the middle of Old Dorms. It doesn't have to be out on the Lawn or in the gardens. You don't have to be reading Dante in Starbucks on a rainy day. And though one is certainly more nostalgic when intoxicated, the feeling is in no way dependent on alcohol.
It's not about the creation of extraordinary moments, but more about suddenly noticing that the ordinary moments are, as the Genie from Aladdin put it, "phenomenally cosmic." It's the subtle changes that you notice about yourself over the course of a week, a month, a year.
I eat biscuits and gravy.
I say "ma'am" an awful lot.
I find my aversion to the word "y'all" somewhat lessened.
But it's also about the things that stay the same. When I go home, I still sleep harder on my own bed than anywhere else in the world. My mom cries at the airport. My father rolls his eyes. My dog pees on the floor when I walk in the door. Same 'ol, same 'ol. The world is still on its axis, the Yankees are still the best team in baseball, Lombardi's still has the best pizza going.
I miss the screeching sound of an Uptown 4 train as it leaves Grand Central. I miss the suburbs. I miss having nothing to do on a Friday night and complaining about it. So I'll go home for a few months, cause some havoc, create some mischief, sleep a lot and get bored. August will come and it will just be time to get back to Charlottesville.
It's been an up and down year -- a fact that holds true (I think) for most first years. I don't think that anyone here could possibly argue that we are coddled. The bottom line is that U.Va. is a big place and sometimes everyone feels a little bit lost, confused, befuddled. For me, finding myself has something to do with the smallest moments -- when that confusion disappears and I'm just glad to be a New Yorker in Virginia.
A-J Aronstein can be reached at aronstein@cavalierdaily.com
Read More
On embodying ‘Hey There Delilah’
By Mai Hukuoka | 3 days agoA long-distance relationship – in which the hurdle of communication and staying connected doubles in size – was the bane of my existence, something that I wanted to shy away from for as long as possible
Sbrocco’s serves breakfast classics with rich flavors
By Ingrid Gay | August 18, 2025Sbrocco's lures in customers with their Pinterest-worthy decor and high-quality baked goods, ranging from their brioche-based donuts to New Jersey crumb buns to refreshing cold brew
The value of shoveling chicken poop
By Rosie Strickland | August 14, 2025Unlike most of my resume-oriented peers navigating corporate internships, I’m spending my summer sweating through outdoor manual labor as a farmhand, making lattés and selling shampoo bars at a local shop in my hometown
