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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

The Mid-Midd Crisis

I had the unique opportunity of speaking at The Moth this past Thursday (the Moth, for those of you who don’t know, is a live story telling event held in the Gamut Room). The experience proved to be extraordinarily fun and exciting, yet I realized something as I stood up there recounting my tale. The loudest laughs, the greatest applauses, the most visible signs of excitement all came from a particular group. It was the latest batch of baby Febs who had shown up and beyond all logic seemed generally attentive to what I had to say.

Now I do not mean to judge Febs as stereotypically more enthusiastic. After all, we are all excited about being in college when we first get here. In truth, my fascination was less a product of them (sorry, Febs) than of an internal trouble. Here I was two years into college and what had happened to all my enthusiasm? My genuine optimism? My eagerness to participate? Had I even had any of that to begin with?

I am convinced the mid-Midd crisis is a thing. It happened to me slowly, quietly, and so subtly that I did not even notice it. No, it was my parents that noticed. They pulled me aside a couple times and asked vague questions like “How are things?” “Is anything bothering you?” and “You seem off?” With mental illness now getting the awareness it deserves, I am lucky to have such attentive parents. I had no clear answers for them though. Nothing seemed particularly wrong; my grades were good, my friends were good and everything was fine. Just fine. Nothing was bothering me and nothing was making me excited. The emotional plateau I hit mid-college was odd to experience and even odder to get away from.

We change as time goes by here, or at least I hope we do. We get smarter, more mature, and more confident. In theory we have more figured out, at least in terms of our academic interests. Yet there are dangerous pitfalls at this stage of the college experience just as there were at the beginning, and I am sure there will be towards the end. Enthusiasm wanes and Middlebury becomes, in a sense, disenchanting. Classes seem to blur together and academic life follows a predictable routine. Even weekends seem deeply scheduled procedures, pre-game, actual game, post-game, Grille, sleep, wake up at 1, rinse and repeat.

The trouble is that upon hitting the mid-Midd crisis, we cannot buy ourselves a Porsche and drive across America. Nope, we are still stuck here, going through the paces of a college experience that has stopped surprising us. The worst thing anyone can feel about college is that they are wasting their time. Apathy and boredom are our greatest enemies here, not alcohol or midterms. So what is left for us to do? We have to confront the age-old riddle of “Here I stand. What shall I do?” That is the only question that matters. What is to be done? We may love our routines, but even so, they should be broken at times. Can we change ourselves? Or must we rely on familiar faces, classes and experiences? Why not give something else a shot?

If I were to prescribe a remedy to this (and I am by no means out of my mid-Midd crisis) I would start with people. Yes, people. When we count our blessings here, it usually comes in the form of beautiful buildings, brilliant professors and a point free dining system. Rarely do we look to our peers as sources of inspiration or uniqueness. Expanding our social circles is never a bad thing and gives us new avenues to re-invention. There is nothing wrong with aspiring to be like our peers, whether it be trying to recapture underclassman enthusiasm or the reserved intellect of seniors in our classes. Often we hesitate, perhaps out of pride, to exemplify profoundly good qualities we see in other people.

Experience has to be the second component of escaping the mid-Midd crisis. Change for the sake of change is often thought of as bad, in terms of the college experience, however, I disagree. Sometimes change for the sake of change is necessary, even if it turns out for the worse. Better we make a mistake now, surrounded by great institutions and people, than later, no? Changing our everyday experience may be as simple as conscientiously making discussion sections about the group and not the individual, going out of your way to say hi to people you have just met or, in my case, telling a story about Glitter at the Moth.

The mid-Midd crisis can leave us jaded and apathetic if we let it run its course. If we see it and acknowledge it, then at least we have a chance to make our middle chapters at Middlebury just as profound, just as exciting as the first weeks we were here.

Artwork by CHARLOTTE FAIRLESS


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