I wrote this post last weekend on a road trip to Clemson, but time constraints and computer issues have delayed its posting. Here’s what was on my brain…

Orange!

Chris and I have brought our girls to their first Clemson experience. I sit here illuminated only by the light of the computer screen while my sweet fam is tuckered out in the two double beds of our hotel room (thank you, Starwood points).

I graduated from Clemson in 1995, and, for me, there is no other place like it. My first year there was the worst year of my entire life, and I tried my dead-level best to transfer to Wofford – all to no avail. I didn’t adapt well to being a minnow in an ocean, but it was good for me in some ways. It was awful for me in others, but I digress. Hundreds of poor choices aside, I came to love this place! As I drive through intersections and step in my own footsteps from those years and as I remember certain booths and sandwiches from favorite restaurants, I can easily slip back into her. For moments at the time I can walk in the past. This campus is my fountain of youth. My body instinctively hunches over under the burden of my brown suede bag and my calves burn in the car just remembering the hill to Clemson House. My hair grows inches by the minute and my stomach growls for pizza and Taco Bell. I stroll by buildings and hear thirteen year-old conversations and lectures. I see places, and detailed memories of mundane experiences roll on my screen. I never knew the clock on Tillman Hall is pointless; time doesn’t exist here.

I’m in an orange state of mind…

Chris says, “Go Dabo!”