With semesters coming to a close many of us find ourselves returning home or—in some cases—never having left. It is December and we are sitting in a pile of string.

Let’s sit down and study the intricate ways our minds make connection from the weight of our experiences, the conditioning of our environments, and the noises we have heard, absorbed, and rebounded.

Summer is meant for swimming—even if you dislike the water or don’t know how to swim. Like a lot of people, my own mind is a place where I’ve been swimming a lot lately.

I’m half white and half Latinx; looking a certain way and acting a certain way has always kept me halfway “in the window” and halfway out. Our individual experience shapes our perspectives in these conversations.

We have overcome. We, the humans of NIRSA, have caught each other when the world turned upside down.