Bucknell-Mount Carmel Connection

I feel extremely fortunate to have some really great friends, who like me, were raised in Mount Carmel and able to attend Bucknell for college. While at Bucknell, it was always comforting to have a few friends who could understand how I was trying to navigate my way through the Bucknell world while holding onto my coal region roots. This could be a whole dissertation by itself, but the point here is that I'm glad I had people in my life who crossed worlds.

Huge shout out to my friend Laraine who falls into this category in my life. Laraine and I were involved in a lot of the same things in high school and in college. We even earned the same type of master's degree so we could pursue working in student affairs at the college level. You could say that our roots were influential in the paths we chose as we grew older and approached "the real world."

I invited Laraine to Lewisburg last night for dinner and a Bucknell basketball game as a way for us to catch up while she's visiting family over the holidays. She lives on the west coast so I don't often see her very much. In the car ride to Lewisburg we discovered that our professional lives had similar trajectories over the past three years. While I won't rehash the gory details of some of the drama-ridden and tragic moments of our very first careers, I will say that I think we were both comforted by the fact that the other "understood" in a way that perhaps others in our lives can't really relate to. I don't use the word empathize often because it really is hard to sometimes walk in another person's shoes, but I think in this case, empathy applies.

Spending time with a friend who crosses over two worlds allows for two very special circumstances. Obviously, we get to discuss our personal lives, provide updates, ponder future endeavors, etc. But just as important, we get to discuss the other people in our lives. Laraine always gives me some good updates on friends from home and college who she keeps in touch with, people that I still do care about but who aren't part of my daily network, and I get to do the same. The point here isn't to gossip, but to generally know about how others are doing.

And once we pass through all of that insight, we often fall back into serious reminiscing about some of the really great times we had. This is also helped when we run into Bucknell staff members that we used to work with, who remind us of some very special moments in our lives.

We rehashed many memories. Many enjoyable, laughter-driven memories. I'm still smiling, thinking about how often we shared such great moments. I'm still smiling, knowing how truly blessed we were to share such an amazing college experience. I'm still smiling, feeling empowered by my Bucknell years. It is such a phenomenal place. Seriously. I'm so glad to have the opportunity to go back there and feel these feelings and share them with people who mean a great deal to me. I wouldn't trade that for anything.