There Is No Roof.

I wasn't entirely honest yesterday when I shared my own story of facing the unexpected.

There was another gut-punch to follow that national crisis: my mother and I lost our home in Washington, DC. Gentrification, job insecurity; no need to go into it, that's another story.

What matters here is that I panicked less when those towers fell and more when NYU and the city urged those of us who weren't local to go home.

Now, school has always been my second home. I thrived in school, I was a spoiled and high-achieving darling that got great grades and spoke too much in class because I usually knew the answers before the question. I pursued my PhD because I found it to be the coolest thing ever to be paid to read books and talk about them.

I still do.

That's not to say I didn't have a happy home growing up, I mostly did. I certainly took having a permanent address for granted.

And then, at 19 years old just like that perfectly blue sky with planes where they shouldn’t be, my environment changed rapidly and suddenly and I had no clue how to get it back.

If you've had advising conversations with me you'll know how much I mention having always had a summer job or internship in college. That I graduated early and always went from job to job. Yes, I am high-achieving but at this age I can't say which comes first, the high-achievement or the instinct to survive.

Or maybe, by now, they've become one and the same.

I graduated early because I couldn't afford another loan for just 2 credits knowing I'd be paying rent after graduation. I always had at least one job since I was 17 because I wouldn't rely on just one source of income after witnessing my own loved ones suddenly lose jobs.

But living this way meant jobs always came before anything else.*

There was no thought of going home when what I considered my home was no longer mine. I had become my own place.

Which is why I hate small talk. Because eventually people always where you're from. Or whenever the holidays roll around and people ask if you're going home and I say that I am but I know they mean someplace else.

Of course, we are all from somewhere. I haven't set foot in my childhood home in 20 years.

My home is what and where I make it.

When I accepted my current job I had a problem I never anticipated: not enough furniture. All of my most precious belongings could always fit in one bag and up to five boxes I could ship for cheap.

What I’m trying to say is that when the towers fell and I walked and walked it was without any assurance that I would one day turn around.

That was awful. That shouldn't be.

But here I am.

And there you are.

I wish I could tell all of you not to be afraid and not to worry. I can't and I won't. But I can tell you that you are the expert of your own life. For those of you with home and food insecurity you know what is best for you in a crisis. Do not doubt yourself or second guess your instincts.

Rely on them. Better, tell us what that reliance has looked like for you. Do not presume that large, old institutions know best. They don’t. Because it’s the people who make the space. And Harvard is older than this very nation's founding. (Not the land, though, never that)

Keep going.

* did I just say employment is BAE? If that ain’t some capitalist mindf*ckery…