Cherubs and community associate Momo Zhou look out at Lake Michigan.

For me, the biggest step in coming to cherubs was leaving everything and everyone I love behind. When I came to Evanston, I left friends who I wasn’t afraid to cry to. I left family members who loved my writing whether or not I had a nut graph. Here, no matter how exciting the opportunity was, it wasn’t quite home, at least not at first. 

As I walked up to Jones Residential College, I saw the chalk on the sidewalk. The details were a little blurred by a combination of excitement and drowsiness, but I distinctly remember something about “the best summer of my life.” That’s what everyone I talked to had said. They said I wouldn’t want to leave the campus and all the new friends that I would meet. I would keep in contact with all of them for the rest of my life, they said.

When we met our instructors, Elia Powers told our group that the best man at his wedding is going to be someone he met here at cherubs. I’m sure it was meant as reassurance, but all of the reassuring just felt like extra weight on my shoulders. “Make friends, or else.”

What if I don’t? What does that say about me?

Things fell into place after the first week. I felt at ease with my roommate, accepted her neurotic ways and her messiness.  I was familiar with the sardonic comments of my peers and no longer found them offensive.

I was inspired by them. Maybe I was even a little intimidated. Unlike many, I was excited to get my paper back splotched with ink. I loved the high standard I was held up to. As far as I’m concerned, this was not criticism, but faith. They believed that I could get better, that I could write a piece worthy of publication.  At my high school, mediocrity is more than enough.

But it wasn’t until Mary Lou Song’s lecture, an eBay love story, that I realized that what I found here was love.

I love to write. I love to tell stories. I think a lot of people forget about that kind of love. Now I know that it’s the most important kind. It’s the only love that I can remember always having.

Boys came and went. Friends changed and grew apart. I think I used to love macaroni and cheese, but to be honest, it’s a little overrated.  Writing has always been there.

I never regret telling a story the way that I sometimes regret letting that special someone get the best of me. I never regretted writing the way I regretted the sixth piece of pizza.

Mary Lou taught me that what I was doing by coming to cherubs was finding love, not leaving it behind.