Heartbroken.

It's almost midnight and I can't go to sleep.  My college alma mater, Westmont College, is in the middle of a massive, devastating brush fire... and it's starting to lose the battle.  That is the front gate into the school, and all behind it is the glow.

While watching the news, I found out that my freshman dorm, the beloved Clark dorm, had caught fire.  Some time later, I recall the word "engulfed" being used.  And then they showed it.  It broke my heart.  My freshman year was a defining moment in my life- and the main stage for it is now gone.  When I called a friend to tell her, we started crying.  

Now, I've talked some major crap on Westmont since graduating, mostly because they got my name wrong at my freaking college graduation (that much money, you think they could've gotten it right), it can be a bubble, it's like high school, chapel is required... on and on and on.  

But when I heard about the fire, something weird happened.  An overpowering defensive feeling, kind of like, "HEY!!!  That's MY school, you can't do that!!!"  I didn't used to feel that way.  But now, I'm so sad the place that was the cause of so much fretting and at the same time so many good times is suffering and might not make it through the night.

The place that introduced us to the "Trough", otherwise more politically correctly referred to as the Sunday Night Sundae Bar.

The place that awarded me the degree that will help me look better when I apply for jobs in a few months.

The place where I met some dear friends that I'm still close with over 10 years later.

The place where I met my dear, dear husband for crying out loud!  If he hadn't been a Clark G guy, and I hadn't been an honorary Clark H girl, we might never have met.  Mostly because he was too busy emailing his girlfriend for the first two years and I was too busy surfing and stalking the checkout boys at the local Vons- but we ran in the same circle of friends so we knew each other!

The place where I could kick all the decrepit lightposts going down the hill from the Student Center (the Dooker rules!!!), and they'd all dim out and then slowly one-by-one they'd come back on.

The place where I slammed my hip into a very tall stereo speaker as I stumbled out of bed and into a doorway during the 1994 Northridge earthquake (yes, we felt it all the way up in Santa Barbara).

And now, there's no more news.  I have to wait until daybreak to see what remains of the site of 4 years of memories.

God, please keep Westmont safe.

(The above photo was taken by some incredibly brave soul named Ray Ford.  Just giving credit where credit is rightly due.  He took a lot of photos of the campus earlier in the night, and while I appreciate seeing the truth, it still made me cry.)