By: Granville Sexton
Four months ago, as I was walking down the streets of Oxford studying abroad, an odd 4,000+ miles away from my home, the last thing on my mind was stumbling into something familiar. That was, until I heard a strangely familiar accent call out to me. Suddenly, I turned my head, and an older man spoke to me in a southern accent, gesturing to my Milligan University sweatshirt, “Are you from Tennessee?” After a very brief explanation of my jumper, he introduced himself and his daughter, John and Sarah, who were from Kingsport, a town only thirty minutes down the interstate. What a wild coincidence!
Earlier this year, I was not sure I was going to be on this trip. Only three months before I boarded the plane to England, I still didn’t own a passport. I had no idea what to expect. It sounded surreal to have an experience like this, traveling across the Atlantic to a city in a seemingly unseen sphere. Of course, I have a few British friends here at Milligan, so I knew some quirky slang from across the pond, but I was expecting to be transplanted into a whole new world. I think I approached my time abroad with an expectation that this adventure would expand my perspectives in bold ways, making me a distinguished scholar. This expectation quickly came crashing down soon after my arrival, and certainly after walking into John and Sarah.
I must say, it had to be crazy from John’s perspective. He’s traveling in a city with history at the end of every corner, 4,000 miles away from home, with his daughter, just to run into a random college kid wearing a track & field crewneck of his hometown’s local university. On the flip side, I’m still bewildered. I didn’t think fragments of East Tennessee would follow me to the United Kingdom. Although it makes me wonder, how much of Appalachia did I carry to another country? It’s oddly scary; how did I get this far away from home, and it still finds me?
I’m headed into my third year at Milligan, and I’m realizing more and more how much my experience here has formed me. In a way, this hideaway in the mountains has turned into a home. While at Oxford, I found myself returning to habits I hold here. There was much joy to be found sipping a coffee on various benches in Oxford, just like on the benches in Mary Sword Commons. There was much beauty to be observed as the sun hit the English trees at golden hour, just like the sun crests over Buff Mountain to hit the leaves perfectly. I remember being nervous but confident heading into my first classes, just like my freshman year at Milligan. Everything was different, yet so familiar.
I find it quite funny. Traveling can inform us so much about other cultures and lives, but it can also help us learn more about who we are. Through my time away, I learned much more about my life here at Milligan. It only took a chance encounter 4,000 miles away for me to realize that. Even if we’re a few dozen hours of travel away, we carry our experiences with us wherever we go. I went into my study abroad expecting to engage in a metamorphosis, only to discover how much I’ve already been formed by my experiences leading into this one.
I imagine it won’t take me walking down a street in Kingsport, wearing an Oxford University sweatshirt, bumping into somebody who is from the Headington area, a suburb of Oxford, to realize how much that time affected me. Nonetheless, while Milligan isn’t as glamorous as a world-renowned University a day of international travel away, it still has a significant impact on who I am now. And I carry that with me wherever I go.It seems beautiful to me that a simple crewneck displaying my time as a student-athlete at a small college, in a medium-size city in East Tennessee, represents such a meaningful duration of my life. It serves as a reminder that the experiences I’ve had are a part of what makes me, me. And while you might not recognize it from the crewneck I’m wearing, the time I spend at Milligan will certainly be a factor in who I am, wherever I am.
Cover Photo: The Radcliffe Camera at Oxford University, England, by Granville Sexton