I’ve been thinking a lot about college recently. Not my favorite mental landscape in which to dwell, but I often have a hard time redirecting my thoughts.

I think it all started a few weeks ago when I was walking back from a bar with my boyfriend, Jacob, and another couple.

I was a little drunk, and Jacob and I were walking several paces behind our friends. They were completely caught up in their own conversation, bumping shoulders and laughing in the unique way of newly-formed couples, full of optimism and infatuation.

The night was cold, my breath floating up into the sky ahead of me and my toes losing feeling inside my poorly-insulated shoes. The streetlights cast pools of intermittent light, and I kicked out at the occasional pinecone on the road, sending it flying into front yards.

It felt just like college.

Drunk. Walking back from a party, a bar, a sporting event. The necessary traverse between the evening’s festivities and the warmth of home.

“If only the P2P were here to bring us back home,” I joked to Jacob, referencing the late-night bus infamous for circling UNC-Chapel Hill, picking up underage drunk students and depositing them back at their dorms.

The minute the words passed my lips, I was startled by them.

I rarely talk about college. Too many ghosts live in those memories, and I’m much happier when I orient myself firmly in the present.

But at this moment, in this atmosphere so reminiscent of my college years, the thought of college didn’t fill me with the usual anger and anxiety.

I felt just the slightest hint of nostalgia.

Jacob responded that he hadn’t thought about the P2P in ages, and we spent several minutes laughing about memories we both shared but had experienced separately on the P2P.

And then as we neared home and the end of the topic, Jacob turned to me and knowingly said, “So you do like Chapel Hill.”

And the thing is. I wish the answer to that question could be yes.

I wish I could say that the conversation made me reevaluate my negative relationship with my college experience.

But I think I just liked the P2P. I have always romanticized public transportation and the idea of complete strangers sitting shoulder to shoulder as they utilize a common good to move their personal journeys forward. I expect that I will always find that beautiful.

But, no, the vast pain of college still outweighs the small moments of joy I occasionally find within my memories.

But during that walk home, when my heart was warmed by a lager and the classic romanticization of public transportation, it was nice to catch a brief glimpse of that college nostalgia everyone is always going on about.