Tempe’s evening skies have filled with fireworks—a sign that graduation ceremonies are underway. For Madi Latham, who’s graduating with a bachelor’s in creative writing, it’s a time of reflection as well as celebration.
On Wednesday evening, Latham will be at Valley Bar reading an essay as part of its live reading series Bar Flies. You can read part of the essay here.
I graduate with a bachelor’s degree from Arizona State University tomorrow, and I expect that at dinner, my family will tell me they think I missed out on the college experience because I didn’t live in the dorms.
And I keep telling them, for four years now, that I lived in the Adelphi Commons for at least three hours — which wasn’t long enough to assert my dominance and use the shared bathroom — but was long enough to dry out my face from all the crying and convince my roommate that I was emotionally unstable.
Which was true. This was a version of me that existed before 40 milligrams of Prozac.
And to be fair, I ended up doing my entire sophomore year online due to a pandemic, so I was just ahead of the others. The virus was spreading, and I got to watch the inferno burn from my bedroom.
It was the only time my separation anxiety did anything good for me.
I did still get COVID from my mom, but at least I didn’t catch it from a frat party. And that was because I never went to a frat party.
I never went to any parties.
I didn't go to any ASU football games either. Big crowds don’t settle well in my stomach when every day is a mass shooting, and to be honest, I didn’t have any college friends.
I have lived my social life through an Instagram account called Tempe Barstool. Seeing people get crushed by mattresses thrown over balconies and other people butt naked and barefoot in the gym was enough to convince me to stay far, far away from public spaces at ASU.
I keep telling my family to give me some college street credit because I’ve walked from Apache to University in 116 degree weather. And I’ve been both hit on and hit by bikers. And not the cool motorcycle kind. One day I was walking down by Gammage during prime release time and someone on a bike came from behind and wheeled right into my back. They didn’t try to brake, or turn, or maneuver around me. And then they just rolled away like nothing ever happened.
At least take me out to eat first, I thought.
So you can see why I’m on campus for class. And then I go to work. And then I go home.
My aunt used to say, “Why? Why go home? Why not live a little? Go to the bar!” You know, me personally, I like to avoid all possibilities of being sexually assaulted, which, according to ASU’s own website, happens to about 13% of the female student population — and somehow still not as often as at my own house when I was growing up.
That’s a story for another day.
Still, I wonder if I really did miss out by sidestepping the dorms. That question probably won’t answer itself for a long time, if ever.
I do know that tomorrow, I’ll walk debt free, with honors — and a college experience that looks a bit different than that of my peers. And that’s okay.
I’m proud, resentful — and spiraling toward the unknown.