Read the full text of "love against all odds":
The summer I first arrived at Yale, I felt like an unmoored star. Pulled from my familiar constellation of family, friends, and community, I didn’t know how I’d find land or where I might fall. Yale was the center of a faraway universe, a distant sun that glowed with the warmth of possibility, but never truly touched me… until I walked through the gates of Old Campus.
I was now part of a new galaxy, potential futures unfurling before me like an infinite cloud of stardust. My loved ones squinted up at me, muscle and bone transmuted into pure light. The faith of their unwavering gazes brought me comfort. Yet the history and heft of Yale was a gravitational force that pulled me into unexpected orbits.
Here I was: a public school kid who loved libraries and singing and theater, suddenly surrounded by… all of this.
I wasn’t ready for the white hot heat that burned my skin so close to the sun.
Every choice felt weighted. Urgent. Like I had cemented the rest of my life in choosing the wrong course or the right club.
What I didn’t know is that every person around me felt the same. We were hiding behind the veneer of the well-adjusted happy Yalie, swallowing the fears bubbling up inside, asking the same questions:
Was I meant to be here?
What could I possibly make of myself in a place like this? Could I really belong?
(Music)
I was searching for land As I fell from the sky
A falling star
With nowhere to hide
I followed my fears Didn’t question those lies Took me all these years To find the light
I let my star fade
Didn’t know my own truth
When I stepped through those gates I felt something come loose
Following fears Following fears Following fears
Makes love hard to find
Following fears Following fears Following fears
Makes love hard to find
If Yale was a bright sun fixed to the night, burning and illuminating in equal measure, then the people I met here were glittering planets and stars, scattered in unfamiliar patterns. I was surrounded by people who’d spent their entire lives preparing for a place like this, sure of their exact placement in the sky.
But if you looked at just the right angle, other constellations emerged–the lovers and friends and chosen family I made all equidistant from the center of my heart.
We charted new paths clustered lovingly together like words to an invocation guiding us through this disorienting galaxy.
But the star I flew towards like a moth to moon was Sam. Professor Samuel See.
He taught a Queer Mythologies seminar in my sophomore year. Sam made me feel like I’d found a home at Yale.
Like I could survive among the stained glass windows of slaves picking cotton in sparkling shards of light, the eyes that sometimes pierced my back when I held my girlfriend’s hand, the people who wondered out loud if I deserved to be here.
He taught me that all the fears haunting these hallowed halls were black holes absorbing my precious energy.
Long after his seminar ended we’d share lunch or have coffee, and he’d dissolve my worries with tender words or a gentle reminder of the bright molten passions anchoring my core, the dreams carrying me forward.
The first time Sam heard me sing, he wept throughout my performance. He came to my plays and wrote pages of thoughtful feedback.
I felt lucky to stand in his moonlight. But every moon has its unseen side, and I only glimpsed a sliver of Sam. He died suddenly my senior year.
His passing was a supernova exploding in my brain:
A smoldering shock that melted my perception of self, of Sam, and what could happen next.
He was one of the loves I found, against all odds. And he was supposed to be here, as certain as Sun.
(Music)
He told me one simple truth To help me find the light
He said “God is Joy, And she’s on your side.”
And though the darkness did take him And many others lost the fight
There is a deep and simple power In always seeking starlight
So when the shadows come close And they whisper their lies
Just trust in your feelings
They are the source of your might
Just trust in your feelings Just trust in your feelings Just trust in your feelings God is joy, she’s on your side God is joy
God is joy God is joy
And she’s on your side
