One year ago, my girlfriend took me on “New Buckeye Orientation” visit. I proudly took a photo in front of the building that promised to bring me new friends, mentors, and a solid education. I was green. I was excited. I was anticipatory.
Yesterday, I walked 14,898 steps around OSU’s campus. I’ve kept to the social distancing. I’ve mitigated grocery store trips and friend interactions, but dang it all if I don’t miss this building and everything it represents. Today, I still feel all those things for Stillman and the gifts of invigoration she’s given to me and so many others, even if we can’t go inside right now.
Among my favorite activities whilst being away are chatting with a Class of ’57 OSU CSW graduate. She tells me stories of the college and her experience, and we have become quite good friends over the friendly phone line. Social Workers simply find one another in the madness, and I am so glad to have her as a friend in my current world.
Yesterday, when I got home, I checked my email, generally filled with strange emails from places I shopped once, telling me all about their plans to be proactive during this COVID-19 and the brave new world in which we live. Instead, I found an unexpected and wonderful email from The College of Social Work, notifying me that I am a scholarship recipient for the 2020-2021 academic school year. I broke down in tears, put my walking shoes back on, and kept processing how much good there is to do, be, and become. I imagined by late Brother, Matt, walking next to me in the new shoes I buried him in, white and blue Adidas. He had H1N1 and died of complications from pancreatitis in the last pandemic of 2009. Full circle, Friends. Full circle.
Until we are all together hand-in-hand again at Stillman, I am encouraged to continue to be the change where I am, with what I have.
We truly are all in this together.
![](https://u.osu.edu/rineveld.1/files/2020/04/Stillman-Hall.jpg)