The error of our ways

To my beloved $80,000 now funding my graduate school alma mater,

I am sorry I gave you away so soon, $80,000. I think of all that we could have done together. There are so many experiences we could have had, but our time was cut short. It feels like our relationship together ended before it even had a chance to begin.

If things had only been different, we could have taken several years to travel the world together, staying in luxury hotels or small $4 per night huts by the river, depending on our mood. We could have rode a boat down the Mekong River, shopped in the Bangkok night markets, made love to an adorable Thai folk guitar player with shaggy dark hair. We could have gone to the Festival in the Desert in Morocco and made music with our new Tuareg friends. We could have chipped away at one of the remaining glaciers in the Arctic on a luxury yet environmentally-responsible cruise.

We could have been so good together, but you left me too soon, $80,000. Why didn’t you love me more? Why didn’t you show me the error of my ways? And why didn’t I just appreciate you more to begin with? I was so impulsive to just throw away what we could have had together. To hastily blow you on 4 silly, hurried semesters. Think of all the New York pizza we could have had. We could have traveled to Germany for bratwurst, to Poland for pierogies, to Mexico for tamales, to Ethiopia for Ethiopian food. The world was our oyster, $80,000, and instead we wasted our time together in Medford, Massachusetts, the land of angsty Red Sox fans.

What was I thinking, $80,000?! I don’t know, I just don’t know. I try to replay the steps in my head. Where did I go wrong? Why couldn’t we have stayed together? I was so rash in throwing you out the window. “Throw caution to the wind,” they say?! Why oh why?! We could have had years together but instead I chose to waste what we had on an intense, short-lived, late-nights-filled, binge of academic excess.

Sometimes it feels like the universe is playing a cruel, cruel joke on us, $80,000. I don’t think I’ll ever fully understand what happened between us or why. All I know is that I’ll always miss you and wish things were different. But I’ll try to move on without you. And without what could have been.

Always yours,
Leah