The Post-Homecoming Depression Is Real

Jared Borislow10 years ago

My triumphant return to Madison for Homecoming weekend at the University of Wisconsin left me with more questions than answers. Like I said in the column I wrote in preparation for heading back up to the Dairy State, I wasn’t too sure what to expect when I got up there. Well, I didn’t make much headway in solving said conundrum, as I went from having no idea what to expect to having no idea what happened. What I do know, though, is that I had the best weekend of my post-grad life.

When I say that I’m not too sure what happened, I don’t mean it in the “I was only sober for approximately three of the hours (and that’s probably being generous, in case my mom reads this) that I was in Madison from Thursday-Saturday” way — I have a fairly decent memory of the general gist of what probably happened. Don’t believe me? Here, I’ll prove it.

On Friday night, I returned from the bars to discover that an unforeseen audible had been called, and the couch at my fraternity brothers’ apartment that I’d been promised for the night had a squatter passed out on it.

With everybody else asleep and no access to pillows or blankets, I did what any sane person would do: passed out right next to my boy Colby on that granite countertop.

On Saturday morning we had the idea to all get frosted tips. I was going to frost my beard, too, and my boy G-skills was gonna get his pubes frosted.

Biggest regret of the weekend was not getting them. I can’t remember why we elected not to. I’d like to think it was a time restraint thing, but I think it had something to do with the fact that the salon we were going to go to has a sign-up sheet for patrons and we couldn’t think of a cool way to write “frost my tips, please” on it.

A little later, my fraternity brothers’ roommate brought out his “fun box” filled with magical and enchanting garb, and the pregame really got started.

Then things start getting a little hazy. This haziness can be attributed in part to this shot that a friend purchased for me.

It looks like the contents of a septic tank shared by a sperm bank and an underground abortion clinic, but in reality it is the end result of asking the bartender for Irish cream, vodka, and bartender’s choice liqueur. And, for reasons that remain unclear, we decided to take it out of our shoes.

Realistically, whatever was caked into the bottom of those Sperrys that I’ve worn five times or so a week for the last three and a half years was probably not as gross as the chunky, curdled mess I poured into them. I don’t regret that. I do regret that smug look on my face, though. I haven’t seen a grin that shit-eating since that time I thought I was cool because a porn star talked to me once.

Luckily, I got knocked down a few pegs from the whole ordeal and wasn’t as enthused post-shot.

Check out that chick behind me. Not sure if you’ve ever seen that much disgust in a girl’s face before, but that’s pretty much the only face I’ve ever seen a female make around me.

I finished out Homecoming gameday by going to Jimmy John’s alone as a graduate in my college town, which should lay to rest any rumors you may have heard about me not being really, really cool. I returned to the apartment, raided the fun box, found an adhesive unibrow, accidentally ripped off half of the adhesive, improvised, and learned a little lesson about life before passing out.

See? Told you I kinda have a general idea of the probable series of events that transpired at Homecoming. Now you’ll believe me when I say that by “I have no idea what happened this past weekend,” I mean that I just can’t really put into words the feelings my return to my college town gave me.

The main takeaway I have from Homecoming is this: If the amount of fun I had this weekend is the amount of fun I had every weekend in college, then life after graduation is absolutely terrible. No bones about it. At one point on Friday, I was so happy to be alive that I almost went full-fratal nudity and meatspinned on the bar in what would have probably been referred to as “Coyote Super Ugly” in the local newspaper the next day.

Depression, as I use it in the title, is too strong of a word to be interpreted in the literal sense in this situation. I’m not “I need medication” depressed — it’s more like the “I’m hammered and all I want in the world is my favorite drunk food but I a-barred for too long and they closed five minutes ago” kind of “depression” (which I also coincidentally felt on Thursday night). I’ve been going about life as normal since my return to Austin, but I still long for Homecoming weekend like fellow TFM writer Dan Regester longs to not be out of bounds after every single drive he hits out on the golf course. Seriously, though — dude always hits it into the shit. Rumor has it he hasn’t been lying two in eight years.

In this circumstance, a quote that appeared on myriad Myspace pages rings true more than ever. My pledge son Kevin tried to quote it when we parted ways on Sunday, but ended up accidentally butchering it and making it super rapey by switching a few words around. The quote is, of course, “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” I’m going to end this column with his quote, though, because it gives me one more chance to remember one of the best weekends of my life.

“Don’t cry because it happened, smile because it’s over.”.