By Ray Jacobs, Writing Tutor
March 09, 2023

Dear Ray,

It’s March 2019. You’re in a rough spot right now. You don’t feel like you’re worth much. You don’t have much confidence in yourself. You always feel like you’re doing something wrong. Life has beaten you down in more ways than you can count. You have no close friends to your name. You feel like you’ve lost your place in the world. And you’ve been stewing in it so long that it’s comfortable. You’ve been going to the Deland campus for classes and studying your butt off in the library during the hours between. Under those fluorescent lights, you feel yourself shrinking. Spiraling. You couldn’t tell at the time, but I’m here now, telling you that denying that that’s what’s going on doesn’t make it any better. I used to be you, so I know.

On the plus side, however, I can tell you that you’re about to get to one of your Needlepoints. Needlepoints are those decisions that feel so small, so miniscule, that you can’t possibly wrap your head around how big of a ripple it’ll make in the surface of your life… But it’ll be so great a torsion that it pops - in better ways than you can ever imagine.

You’re about to apply for a job at the Writing Center.

You’ll go to the Daytona campus, walk into that huge library building (which, spoiler, doesn’t exist anymore… you’ll never even get to work in it before the new building opens), and sit down with the director and one of the Writing Specialists. During the discussion, you’ll be asked about your favorite books. You’ll bring up Banana Yoshimoto, and the specialist’s eyes will light up. You’ll be so nervous you forget both their names, but that’s okay. Even though you feel like an idiot when it takes you about 5 seconds to realize the interview’s over and you stumble over yourself as you go to leave… You still get the job. Even though your bank gives you the runaround with your direct deposit information… You still get the job. Even though you don’t know what the director could possibly see in you… You still get the job.

On April 1st, you’ll walk in and find that people are welcoming and happy to see you. You’ll get set up with your training and feel like a hippo in a grizzly bear enclosure. A guy with a beard walks right up and sits down next to you, asks you about yourself. He wants to listen to what you have to say. You end up talking about creative writing and The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. You make some offhanded comment about books aging out of contextual relevance, making them postmodern literature. He tells you to keep that for an honors thesis.

After you finish your training, you’ll get set up on the Deland campus again. You’ll get to look out from inside that cozy little nook where you always heard good-hearted laughter from behind the glass. You’ll make Vine references and a tutor with a brilliant laugh and even more brilliant smile will call you funny. It’ll be the first direct compliment you’ve gotten in more time than you’ll care to admit.

You’ll bomb your first few sessions, sure. You’ll have habits you have to work to shake. But you’ll listen and learn. You’ll grow. You’ll blink, and it’ll be summer. You’ll have made friends of your coworkers - people who value you, like the tutor with the curly black hair who doesn’t even notice you’re learning from her until you say something. She’s brilliant, and she’ll remind you of yourself. You won’t realize you’re brilliant too -- not yet, at least.

You’ll look around and realize you have a job you know you’re good at, because the people around you knew you’d be good at it, too. They believed in you not because they had to, but just because. They had no reason to, they just did. And that changes your life.

A pandemic will come (and you’ll freak out about it). You’ll get depressed, you’ll bomb your classes, get really into a band or three… But then, once you come back from quarantine, it’ll be like riding a bike. You’ll be home away from home again. Things will grow and change. They’ll be difficult at times. But at the Writing Center, you’ll know what you can do. You’ll believe in yourself. Others do too, but their opinions will just be icing on the cake. The names and faces will constantly change, among tutors and students alike. But you’ll have finally, finally, found your passion. Because of the Writing Center, you and I have made some of the best friends we’ve ever had. We’ve been given the stability to put in the work, so we can heal in ways we didn’t think would be possible for us.

We’ve done incredible things over the past 4 years. We worked with the Social Media team, presented at a conference, trained people to do what we love, and helped students over 550 times. We get a cat right before Christmas -- at the Writing Center, no less. She’ll be in the engine block of one of the librarians’ cars.

But even though we love the Writing Center, even though it has let us do so many wonderful things, we have to leave.

It’s March 2023. Specifically, March 9th, 2023. It’s my last day.

I’m tearful. Of course I am. In 3 days, I’m packing my stuff in a U-haul and going back to Pennsylvania. Soon, I’ll walk out these doors for the last time. I’ll miss it. Of course I will.

Remember West Chester? That city back home? With the university a bunch of your friends from junior year went to? I got accepted. You got accepted. We got accepted. It’s our dream school, turns out. And it’s been great so far. We chose to make that dream come true.

Even change made for good reasons is hard… But you got this. I got this.

We’re not scared of needles anymore.

Love,

Ray.