all my dreams became memories

on stanford

i graduated over a year ago, and live just eight minutes away from campus.

i do not go back often.

the only time you’ll find me at stanford is for something practical. a coffee chat with a current student, an appointment with a school official, a design event.

i come, i do my thing, i follow the usual exit: a swift uber out from the oval, or tresidder, or wherever i happened to be situated.

this time, though, i decided to give myself to the muscle memory and just keep walking.

through the small forest by roble.
out toward tresidder.
into grassy west campus.

i tapped through an old playlist--ah, adios, jawny.

the music filled my body like water finding old channels, like neuropathways firing off again.

past terman, and i’m remembering how this was my favourite spot in between english fiction and cs347--i’d watch the trees sway and shake their white petals loose, and they’d come down around me like a soft storm.

past lakeside, and i’m back in my usual route to dinner. i see a glimmer of myself at the dining hall pianos, performing medleys that could only be done so with four chords (avicii, glass animals, greatest showman, you would be surprised how many!)

past roble now.
i walked by here every day back to my dorm.
i went to the gym here.
i danced here.

i imagine every path i’ve gone through as a line drawn on the ground. four years of lines, what would a map of them look like?

i knew where i showed up (on call cafe) when i needed a familiar face. i knew exactly which route hated biking (why must evening rides back to adams be so much harder than morning ones?)

i am writing this from a small mound of grass next to huang engineering center. while it always looked comfy, i’ve never lingered here before. my lines have never really extended to this particular corner before. off the map of my own traces, there are glimmers everywhere.

---

stanford was a dream.

i resolved, on day one here, that i would become a version of myself i would be proud of.

my first order of business was deleting the first two letters of my name on the student portal.

my second order of business was dyeing my hair, sitting together with my first friend on the cold tile steps until the colour showed up.

my third order of business was maintaining, on the daily, that aura of confidence and ‘i will speak to you first’ that i’ve resolved to have from now on.

i came here gritted-teethedly believing i would remake myself here. my name. my hair, the way i spoke. but it wasn’t true.

i became myself here, in dorm-room nooks, on late-night walks, beside fountains, over unfinished problem sets, and among people who made room for the parts of me i did not even like.

when i packed my life into a single carry-on and flew across the world, i thought stanford would be the greatest change of my life.

no dream had seemed quite as impossible.

that is, until i became myself here, until there was no more left to become here.

i will no longer have firsts like a 2am hangout with friends i simply gravitated to, or the bike down jane stanford way after a final with my favourite song blasting in my headphones.

i can go back to where i lived, my favorite library, the mound of grass that has always tempted me, but i cannot come back the dream

so while stanford is just eight minutes away, it isn’t.

there is a distance i can no longer cross between the people i loved here, the firsts that have already happened here, the versions of me that existed here.

stanford has become a place i can no longer live inside, but which will continue to live inside of me.

so if i were to have any words for the next adventure, dear reader and self:

enjoy the process

enjoy the becoming

dreams eventually become memories.

the title was inspired by natalie’s video, all my dreams became memories.