EMILY: It’s raining today, and the skies are gray. There’s a gentle breeze being brought in from the window that’s cooling down our apartment. But with it, it also brings this moisture that pervades through the air almost so heavy that you can see it like glass beads suspended and so heavy, that you can feel it. It seeps into the fabric of our couches. And as I sit there trying to do my work, that’s the only thing I can feel on my skin.

In the summer before my senior fall, it rained for the entire month of July. It felt like the clouds were trying to outcompete the ocean. And honestly, they probably won. That creeping rain in July felt like a very accurate reflection of the creeping sadness that had come into my life.

That summer, I was working remotely, so there were days where I would sit on the muggy couch. And it would be dark outside before I even got a chance to go out. And I would just sit there and let the rain soak into my skin. And I felt a distinct lack of motivation, a lack of passion that I hadn’t felt in a long time. Honestly, it felt kind of suffocating at times.

I come to consciousness. And I slowly open my eyes to a darkened room. I roll over, check the clock. My phone says it’s 1:00 PM. It’s finals week, not that I’ve been keeping track of time, not that I know what day is what anymore.

And I lay there in bed. My blinds are down, window clothes, not even the sounds of people, the trees rustling, birds on the field filtering through. There’s a pile of unopened work on my desk in the form of my laptop, sheets scattered messily around my desk, practice exams that I haven’t gotten to, and I don’t want to get to, and I’m not sure I ever will, papers unwritten weighing on my mind.

I know somewhere 10 feet away from me is the kitchen where my friends will be laughing, cooking, talking. And even though I know that that will make me happy, I can’t even find it in myself to get up out of bed, walk over the few feet, and join in. And at that moment, I sit up. And I look around the room. And I realize, oh, shit. This might actually be a problem.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

There was a time I went to the beach at night with my parents just to see the ocean. And we stepped out of the car. And there was a complete silence I had never heard at the ocean ever before. There was no wind, and so there was no sound of water. And it was a really foggy night, just completely dense. And as we walked out towards the shoreline, it felt like we were walking into nothingness, into this void. We couldn’t see where the water started. We couldn’t see the horizon. All we could see was this blackness around us.

Now, when we’re younger, a lot of us are afraid of the dark. And I used to think this was because the dark was this tangible thing. But I actually think the dark is so scary to us because it’s actually an absence of light. It’s a lack of something that we’re so used to being there.

And it was this feeling of being suspended in nothing, just a complete absence of sound, and motivation, and realness that had struck me when I was sitting my bed. And I realized that this was something I needed to grapple with and I couldn’t just ignore anymore.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Sometimes I think about how the Charles River must be really full. Obviously, it’s full of water. It’s full of rain. But it’s also full of students’ secrets and sometimes even full of students’ screams as they tell the river what they can’t tell anyone else. But I think in that way, it’s also full of love.

And there are days where I go down to the river, and I sit by its banks. And I tell it my secrets. And even though it can’t say anything back, it feels like we’re sitting in companionable silence. And I’ll look out at the still waters. And they’ll reflect back to me what I need to hear.

And in the moments where I look at the moon suspended in silence, it feels like a silence that is comforting instead of suffocating. It feels like a warm blanket instead of a heavy one. And there are days where I felt particularly bad where the river would help me put my mind to rest. I think there’s not much more I could ask for.