Marshmallows.

On Saturday, I experienced the senior marshmallow fight. As a junior.

Here’s where it started. I had signed up to give a tour to a contingent of Utah fans, so I met up with about a dozen other tour guides in a field across from campus and we waited for the buses with the visitors to arrive. Once all 400 Utah fans were successfully divided up into tour groups, I went on my way with about 30 perky out-of-towners.

Departure.

The dead-end corner of Terminal 1 at RDU is always the same. Southwest Airlines flights arrive and depart from the five gates in the cluster. The area is perpetually filled with anxious people awaiting flights to larger cities, nervously checking their watches and cell phones for updates on their connecting flights. This sad little end of the terminal always smells like stale Cinnabon and sweat and soccer cleats.

I went home this weekend. Or maybe I came home this weekend. I can never decide if I am coming or going—departing from Notre Dame home and arriving at North Carolina home. Either way, I spent a few days in Cary, and now I am flying to Chicago. I’ll catch a bus (probably) and the bus will take me to Notre Dame.

Family.

The mission of every family is to dissolve.

It sounds awful and harsh and tragic, but think about it. What is a parent’s job? To raise and protect children, to make sure that those children are healthy, safe, happy and smart, and to teach those children to be savvy enough to be able to successfully operate in the world on their own.

The mission of every family is to dissolve.

I don’t know how ready I am for my nuclear family to dissolve, but I can attest to the power of this phenomenon in a different way.