people that are not straight, yet there’s 
just no community.”

As president of both the Black Business 

Society and Out for Business, Sahu 
has used the tight-knit community of 
the Business School to find a place for 
minority groups to come together. Yet, 
unlike the University’s Black community, 
which she has been able to find a place 
in, she finds the LGBT community 
remains disjointed. Gay spaces do exist 
in Ann Arbor, including the University’s 
Spectrum Center. However, many queer 
students on campus feel its efforts to 
provide the resources needed to foster 
a connected LGBT community remain 
inadequate — a reality that has tangible 
consequences for its students.

“I am surrounded constantly by so 

many people,” Sahu confessed in a hushed 
tone. “Yet I still feel so alone.”

Music, Theatre & Dance sophomore 

Alix Curnow echoed this sentiment of 
seclusion to me. As the flicker of the 
Michigan Theatre’s sign lit the right side 
of her face, she detailed the struggle she 
has faced in search of a community of her 

own.

“I feel very isolated,” she explained, her 

entire face now drowned in the light. “I 
went through many stages of depression 
and most of it was rooted in trying to find 
where this part of me fit in my life.”

Curnow was ready to immerse herself 

in the progressive Ann Arbor community, 
hoping to find refuge in a place where she 
would not just be tolerated, but embraced. 
However, her time spent trying to fully 
discover her own self became increasingly 
disheartening.

“Friends, even people that are gay, have 

questioned my sexuality — telling me I’m 
just confused.”

“Even though friends try to offer their 

support, it’s lonely,” her shaded eyes now 
fixated on the floor below. “And being 
able to sit down in class and just knowing 
if there were other people like me would 
make things so much easier.”
M

idnight came and the empty 
booths and folded chairs 
signaled it was time to pack 

up. Gripping my empty mug and the 
hastily-scribbled notes from the day, I 

began to head home. The brisk chill that 
waited patiently at the door accompanied 
me on the walk that night.

Passing through the places I had grown 

to know during my time at Michigan, I 
spotted friends and former classmates 
around each mindless turn of the corner.

Maybe I wasn’t so alone, after all.
But with each step closer to home, 

the sidewalks grew barer. Approaching 
the stairs of my apartment building, 
the outlines of two figures under the 
dying street light were etched out of the 
darkness. As the sound of my sneakers 
dragging across the cracked pavement 
below broke the silence of the night, 
the lock of their lips became undone. 
In unison, they jolted their heads in my 
direction, as if they had been caught 
doing something wrong. I could now 
recognize they were both men. Almost 
instinctively, they took two steps back 
from one another. The air now felt colder 
than before.

“How’s it going, man?” one nodded as 

I passed by, as if they were testing my 
reaction to what I had seen.

I approached the door, feeling the 

icy touch of its frigid handle. Memories 
began to flood my mind as that same, 
bitter Michigan chill danced through my 
fingers. My eyes watered, and whether 
the single tear that managed to escape 
was from the gust of wind or the influx of 
memories, I do not know. Yet, as I crawled 
into bed that night, my freshman self took 
a hold of my mind.

The fear that I saw in the faces of 

those two men outside was all too 
familiar. It was the same fear I felt just 
three years earlier, walking through an 
unfamiliar campus with my freshman 
year roommate. That fear of rejection, 
how others may react. Suddenly, that 
insidious, creeping isolation began to 
re-emerge in my mind.

Hoping to clear my thoughts, I peered 

outside my frosted window, but now, 
beneath that same, dying streetlight lay 
nothing but leaf-covered pavement.

There I knew, despite the people I’ve 

come to know and the things I’ve come to 
learn, I could not escape that unshakable 
loneliness.

Wednesday, October 24, 2018// The Statement 
7B

Courtesy of Sam Goldin

Caleb Grimes

Courtesy of Sam Goldin

Alix Curnow