“Today@Brown… replaces Morning Mail as a daily digest for announcements and events around the campus community.” Few phrases are capable of instilling such a sense of existential dread as this one. Why is everything changing? Where are the paninis? Why can’t I go to a party without falling asleep anymore?
For those of us for whom that gleeful mail notification at 1:00 am was the only constant in our lives we mourn, we hold vigils, and we tell ourselves we’ll move on one day. We enter the next phase of our lives with sweating palms and dreadful uncertainty.
But what can we do to ensure that forward movement occurs?
I personally recommend submerging your face in a bowl of steaming Pho to distract from the pain of loss. If that doesn’t work, try hugging Blueno’s cold metal body until you both become one.
If you’re really hurting, walk along Brown Street and let the wind tunnel carry you up to the clouds, where you can be reunited with your one true love: Morning Mail.
For those looking for a cathartic healing experience, allow me to suggest reading through all your old Morning Mail while crying over a tub of Rocky Road…because, let’s be real, that’s exactly what these last couple of weeks have been.
Since the beautiful alliteration of Morning Mail is no more, we may look to other sources to fulfill our semantic needs; perhaps Burrito Bowls, Rad Ratty, or even Predictable Paxson.
My personal favorite way to mourn was when I hosted a funeral on the Main Green, where a group of friends and I took turns sharing various events we had almost scrolled past or not given a second thought to, but ended up knowing about, courtesy of Morning Mail. We then proceeded to print out old Morning Mailings, cremated them, and then deposited them into the piano in Alumnae Hall. (Jk, I actually don’t have a taste for pyrotechnics, please don’t call DPS on me!)
Once the collective grieving process is complete, we must seek the cold and unfamiliar embrace of ‘Today@Brown’, and accept it as our new source of time-keeping and procrastination.
What can I say? When the pillars of our college experience come crashing, so do we.
So, let’s hold our vigils, scream at our inboxes, and begin our lives again.
Image via Sarah Clapp