Today, as soon as I sat down in my afternoon class, arriving five minutes early to claim my spot, I immediately sent two emails, one to my interim advisor and one to my mentor. They read something like this, “Hi, can we meet? Soon? Please?!?!?” 
 
The past two weeks have been full of surprises, and although I wish I could say they were pleasant, the majority were not. I had people enter and then leave my life more quickly than I had ever hoped for and am afraid of losing more. The loss that has permeated this past year and a half is starting to feel like it is sitting in the air like a thick fog so that, even on the good days, my vision still feels obscured as I try to trudge slowly forward toward my goals. My therapist once told me that having good things, like friends and a shiny new Ph.D. program, is harder than not having them because, when you have something, you can lose it.
 
Grappling with past losses and anticipating future losses is a lot for one person to carry. In my younger years, I may have attempted this on my own because I was full of pride, guilt, and shame for feeling so overwhelmed in my cozy, privileged life. But now I know better. So, I reach out and people reach out to me. I have held people this week, comforted them as they cried, and talked with them as they attempt to handle – at the core – the same issues I am dealing with, each simply having their own unique wrapping. With an increasingly polarized world, it seems less and less like anything is universal, but two things that I know are shared amongst all the people of the world are loss and love. 
 
Most of my stories of loss are not actually mine to tell and my worries about the future are not in my hands. What is mine, and what I can speak to, is the love I have received in the past two weeks. 
 
Apart from emailing both my advisor and my mentor today, I also started my morning with impromptu office hours where I asked a question and then rambled, and a short, enthusiastic conversation where I told one of my professors a piece of cool and nerdy news; akin to the kindergartners that want to show off their new artwork, I could not wait to connect with these two women today. In addition to these short forays, I also wandered sheepishly into the office of my supervisor, claiming to look for snacks but really hoping for someone to simply sit with as my body processed the emotions it held from prior conversations that morning. Luckily for me, sheepish as ever, she picked up on it and innocently said “Did you want to stay and chat?” to which I replied by getting my laptop and sitting in her office with her for the next hour and a half, even jumping on a Zoom meeting with her where she graciously allowed me to be out of camera view but still involved with the conversation. 
 
Other days this week, I had an impromptu date at a coffee shop with a friend, came out as queer at my place of worship in front of members of my small group, vented my rambling feelings to my graduate advisor via Canvas, was gifted a tiny pumpkin charm bracelet, and had one of the most emotional hugs of my life. What do these seemingly unconnected, everyday events have in common? They gave me community, and nearly all of them made me cry or at the very least gave me an emotional release I desperately needed.
 
I have been wanting to write this piece for a while, thanking the people who take care of me, and oftentimes wondering (and worrying) about who was taking care of those who take care of me. I was uninspired until, a few minutes ago, another mentor texted me to see how I was doing and reminded me that, should I ever need it, her house is a “place of refuge.” A place of refuge is her house. It is my supervisor’s office. My friend’s arms. It is the place where I write down how I am formally once a week as an assignment, and it is where I sit in prayer each Sunday. Refuge takes many forms, physical, emotional, virtual. I am grateful for the refuge I have found here, where I escape the feelings of loss and trade them for love in Aggieland. 
 
– Delaney Couri

Delaney is a first-year Ph.D. student in the College of Liberal Arts.