everything i am, anything i’m not (rush, part 3) by Caleb M. '27

Day 8: Don’t Go So Soon

I woke up the next morning to silence. No events to go to. No big plans, no events to show face at, no house to stop by. Things felt… slow.

I stared up at my ceiling in my Simmons single and, for the first time in a week and change, didn’t have anything much to do. Rush was over–actually this time. Nothing left to second guess, to reconsider, to mull over. Nothing was happening anymore. I was just kind of here. Thus, as any other 19-year-old would, I started my day off by grabbing my phone and checking my notifications.

Given the message I’d sent Nathaniel the night prior, then, you could imagine my surprise at having received a text at four in the morning from Jonathan–the president of SAE. And you could probably further imagine my surprise at being invited to the last event of rush: the frat’s final dinner at 8 PM, often referred to as a ‘bid dinner’ because it is the final moment of rush before the frat gives out their offers to rushers to become pledges and, ultimately, brothers.

Jonathan took particular note to say that he’d talked to Nathaniel about what I’d said about joining a frat, mentioned that he also didn’t feel like frat life was for him before joining one, and expressed that he hoped to get to know me more over the course of the next year as a brother.

I remember laying in bed, still under my covers, staring intently at this message, feeling no longer still but frozen. Because everything I’d said and thought the day before was still true. I was comfortable with not needing to rush. I was happy to not get a bid, to not have to pursue being a brother of a fraternity. I felt so much more confident in myself already, in the resolve I’d found in myself. I didn’t need to get a bid. Right?

Then why did I feel so conflicted about this message? So confused? So unsure what to say or do?

I proceeded to spend the whole day thinking about how I was going to respond to Jonathan. There were really two courses of action: go to the dinner and get a bid, or don’t go to the dinner and not get a bid. Simple enough in writing, sure, but a much more involved process in practice. I talked to everyone I saw about it, asked for advice, crowd-sourced opinions as to what a reasonable next step would be in this situation. And, for the most part, they all gave me the same response–“what do you want to do?” Yeah, unhelpful much? I’m asking because I have no idea what I want to do!

This continued throughout the majority of the day until the evening, when I was hanging out at my friend Mercedes R. ‘27’s apartment in Kendall. Mercedes and I will often have movie nights at one of our places where we’ll listen to music, get pizza, make a candy salad, and throw on whatever movie that we usually aren’t really watching to keep ourselves company as we recap the past few months of our lives since we last caught up. Tonight, much of that conversation was dominated by me telling her about Rush. We back-and-forthed about my hopes and my concerns with joining a frat, the things that I had enjoyed, the things that I hadn’t, and everything other detail of the rush process. Mercedes helped me organize my thoughts, and then I immediately proceeded to disorganize them by adding new confounding variables or contrary points until ultimately I was about as confused about the decision as I had been at the beginning of the day. Awesome.

Soon, it was 7:45 PM. I was still hanging out with Mercedes, trying to decide where to go. Hop on a Bluebike to cross the river and attend the bid dinner? Stay on the couch? I took tally of everything that had happened, all of my rush-related values, and so on. Everything seemed so vast and confusing and unclear–until I remembered one of the rules that I had created for myself before starting Rush to keep myself grounded in the communities that I already called my own:

I wasn’t going to let being in a frat take away from the time I dedicated to my pre-existing communities and friends. If I did, I would feel like I was swapping out my friends for this new collective–and while yes, that is a seemingly necessary part of this process, I didn’t want to lose the relationships I had for the relationships I could have. I’d seen it happen before, and it had hurt–and I didn’t want to hurt my friends in that same way.

And if that rule was to be respected, then the decision was clear: going to the bid dinner would mean having to leave the plans I had made with Mercedes already. And I wasn’t going to let that happen.

So I picked up my phone and penned one last message to Jonathan.

thanks so much for reaching out […] i really appreciate all the kindness you’ve shown me throughout this week […] i think this week has kind of helped me learn a lot more about myself, and part of that was realizing that i don’t think i’m rushing right now for the right reasons. i think i’m trying to prove something to myself and to other people about me […] and if i look back at joining a frat, i want to be able to do that knowing that it was a choice that i made because it was something that i truly felt was the next step for my journey […] i’m really happy that i went through this process–not just because of what i learned about myself, but because i got to meet so many cool people like you guys […] again, thanks so much for everything!

Honestly, I won’t even try to frill this message with resolve, because if you’ve read the rest of this series (1, 2) you know that the notion of “last” is never entirely intact. A few minutes later, at 8:00 PM on the dot, just as a group of boys was starting their dinner in a brownstone across the river, I received another message from Jonathan.

caleb, i resonate with what you’re saying. finding your own path is one of, if not the most, compelling aspects in life.

from your interactions with the brothers, we think you’d be a good fit for SAE, whether now, or a semester or maybe a year in the future.

we’d like to give you a bid to SAE tonight.

[…] i recall what you said to me about trying new things: sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, and that’s okay. i’m glad you rushed us, and i think we will always have a spot for you.

And once more, I thought about it. I thought about what I had learned about myself in the past week. I thought about being a member of a frat. I thought about all the events I’d been at. I thought about singing in the SAE backyard. I thought about my conversation with Kayle. I thought about my friends and their mixed opinions on Rush as well as my own. I thought about how being around this community made me feel accepted. 

I thought about everything I am. I thought about becoming anything I’m not. 

And after all that thinking…

thanks for getting me, jonathan.

what do i need to do to receive the bid?

The rest of the night is, unfortunately, confidential. Hey, I can’t spoil the whole thing, can I? But I will share that there was one line, one phrase that I got to hear that evening, that–after years of stressing about fitting in, after months of contemplating about who I was and who I wasn’t, after a week of finding myself in houses and yards and finding myself through conversations and contemplation–meant the world to me:

“I want you to be my brother.”

Day 9: To Bid You Hello

Much has changed since this story started just over a year ago. Interestingly, however, the story still isn’t really over.

The bid that I received from SAE is valid for 1 year, and can be accepted at any point in that year. That means that I still have just under two months to decide if I’m going to pledge SAE. And honestly? I think about it every day. 

I know life is short, and that the opportunity of a lifetime only lasts for the lifetime of the opportunity. And I feel so much more secure in my identity than I did last year when all of this happened. If I were to pledge, it would be because I wanted to, and because it was the right thing for me to do. As the Struts quite iconically sang, “I want to live better days, never look back and say, it could’ve been me.” I don’t want to look back on this opportunity and say, “that could’ve been me.” So who knows what might happen next?

This whole experience showed me so much about myself. It made me more confident, stronger, less concerned about what people tried to tell me I could or couldn’t be. It also made me more ready to try new things and put myself in places that I didn’t know I would fit into or enjoy, because I truly can be anything I’m not. One of the most important of those places is MIT’s dance community, which I have joined as a member of Sakata Afrique, MIT’s premier Afro-Caribbean Dance Team. Much like rushing, I had to stretch myself a little bit to convince myself to go to Sakata tryouts in the fall, but I’m so very glad that I did. My team has provided me with a community, art, growth, and so much more. And all it took was understanding that it wasn’t that I wasn’t a dancer–it was that I wasn’t a dancer yet. I wonder what else I’m not yet. Only time may tell–time, and trying.

So, to complete the Rush series that I have been working on the past year, I share this advice:

If you’re interested in rushing but you’re unsure about it–because you feel like you won’t fit in now, or because you didn’t fit in in high school, or because you think that being in a frat “isn’t you”–I wholeheartedly encourage you to give it a try. It can be stressful, it can be scary, but it’s also so fun. It can give you so much to think about, and it can help you grow more into yourself in ways you might not even know you could. Don’t let anyone put you in a box, and don’t get in your own head about trying to fit in. Present yourself as you are, and if it is right for you, you’ll find a place. If it’s not right for you, that’s okay too–but don’t stop yourself from trying just because you think you might not be accepted or you’re different from the other people that you expect or see in frats or sororities. Remember that college is the one chance you’ve got to try this whole process out, and don’t doom yourself to looking back and wondering if it would’ve been right for you after you walk that stage. And if you’re not a freshman, that’s okay too: it’s never too late until you decide it’s too late. Rushing as a junior was just as if not more fulfilling and informed than it would’ve been if I were a freshman. If you’ve already tried it and you’re still not sure, then go right back in until you know. Life is short, and so is college–don’t let it get away from you. 

Beyond just Rush, though, if there’s something that you want to try during your time here at MIT (or anywhere, really; this advice is time-, place-, situation-, and person-agnostic), don’t let the feeling of not thinking something is “you” stop you from trying it out. I didn’t think dance was for me, and here I am, Co-head Choreographer of Sakata, one year later. I didn’t think I would be a good blogger, and again, here I am–hopefully, being good at blogging. I didn’t think I could be anything besides a Course 6 until I took Introduction to Linguistics, and now I’m writing this from my desk in my Computational Linguistics lab in Spain. I didn’t think I would like partying until I went to the frats with my friends in Sophomore Fall and Friday nights changed forever. And I have so many more things that I am not yet but hope to try soon. MIT is an incredible place for you to try everything. So do just that. Test the bounds of who you are, of what you want to do, of what you can dedicate your time to. You can be so many things at once, in so many different ways, with so many different people, among so many different communities–all you have to do is try. 

You do not have to be committed to not being something. Coming to college is like being handed a baseball bat and sent to tear through your conceptions of the world and of yourself to see what remains intact and what shatters, to be regrown from connection and conversation and experience. You are so much more than what other people have tried to convince you you are, so much more than who you think you are, so much more than just the sum of your parts.

You, too, are everything you are.

And you, too, are anything you’re not.