Mollie Shiflett ’26 is a double major in history and linguistics, not that she knows what to do with that. She is captain of Women’s Club Soccer Gold for the College of William and Mary and is an avid fan of most sports — except golf. Email Mollie at mrshiflett@wm.edu.
The views expressed in the article are the author’s own.
This article is going to be short yet pointless. Unfortunately, every once in a while you agree to write an article, because we have a quota we need to hit, and then days go by and you realize that you have nothing you want to write about, not even an inkling of an idea. Normally, when I say I’m going to write an article, I have an idea by Tuesday or Wednesday, and a draft by Friday.
As I write this it’s Saturday morning and I’m sitting at work. So it’s crunch time and I need to lock in, but I can’t because I’m at work — I work at the Sadler Center’s Information Desk. Normally, I have time to get a little something done while I’m at work, especially at 10:30 a.m. on a Saturday, but not this morning. The answer to why I can’t get anything done on this particular Saturday should be obvious: it’s Homecoming.
So, when faced with a crippling writer’s block and chained to my spot in Sadler for the next two hours, I’m left with only one solution: write about Homecoming. After all, I just need to sit back and experience this chaos, no thinking required.
Of course, I can’t not think for too long. I have to figure out a point to this article, there needs to be an opinion (I’m a section editor, I’d know.) So … opinions about Homecoming. I’m gonna be honest, nothing is coming to me right off the bat, other than that I have a love/hate relationship with Homecoming. It’s nice to see all my old friends again (although, to be fair, I think homecoming is less for people that just graduated than for anyone else), but other than that it kind of feels like “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” where everything you know has kind of just been taken over (although people showing up for Homecoming are easier to spot than actual body snatchers would be).
It just kind of feels like living your life and going to work, and then the person who used to have your job comes to visit. It’s not a bad thing, but it’s just kind of weird. Some people walked by me at work and they were calling Boswell by the name it used to be called (which, honestly, I don’t remember). But that’s my point: the mixing is all just a little crazy.
I was standing in Wawa this morning with two people from the class of ’05, one from the class of ’85 and a few from the class of ’70. The average age of people in that Wawa about doubled from its normal age. And I can’t park anywhere. That’s probably where most of the hate in the love/hate comes from, because for two to three days I cannot get anywhere or park anywhere on this campus, and you pull up to College or Paul’s Deli and the median age is, like, 45 years old. I don’t discriminate against anyone who wants to have a good time, but there’s a reason why they’re ‘old’ stomping grounds, you know? It’s just kind of weird to have your entire world be taken over for a whole weekend.
Maybe it will feel less weird when I’m on the other side of it. But if I had to guess, I’d say it probably won’t, because everyone has kind of a picture in their minds of how campus is, and I feel like when I come back and not everything is the same I’m going to get a case of a disconnect. I can only imagine that the new dorms and Integrated Science Center 4 and all the construction are throwing a bunch of people off. But maybe it would be weirder if I got back here and nothing had changed, because then the fact that I didn’t recognize anyone would make it weirder. I think Homecoming just comes down to being two parallel experiences of a stranger being in your house. One from the viewpoint of the new owners, one from the viewpoint of the old. But I guess time will tell.
