As I nervously make my way halfway down the hallway, scanning every door for my dorm room, I turn to look towards the corner and notice something. "Ashleigh, that's the ugliest couch ever," my mother remarks with a laugh as she pauses to look at what drew my attention. My mom's comment breaks me out of my nervousness, and a giggle breaks out of my throat.
Thinking over my mom’s comment, she wasn’t wrong. Directly in front of me is an incredibly ugly couch. My dorm, Cavanaugh Hall, is practically a million years old, and so is the furniture inside. The couch in question, sandwiched in between a charming little nook with a big window overlooking North Quad, was just a few feet away from my room.
A photo of the Cavanaugh Hall girls from 2012 to 2013 could be seen on the left side of the walls linked to the window. Pictures of Cavanaugh hall from 2000–2001 and 1998–1999 were shown on the right side of the wall.
A few days after moving into Cavanaugh Hall, I met Officer Kelly, the woman who “Kelly’s Corner” was named after. She was a short blonde woman with short hair pulled back neatly into a ponytail at the back of her head. She wore an NDPD baseball cap and a bright smile. After speaking with Officer Kelly for a few minutes, she went to sit on the ugly couch in “Kelly’s Corner,” and that’s when it clicked in my head. While working, Officer Kelly sat on the couch in this area, hence the name Kelly’s Corner.
After asking around to a few upperclassmen, I learned that Officer Kelly has a corner in Cavanaugh Hall because she works security for Cavanaugh Hall a few times a week. The upperclassmen girls would always see her sitting in this corner, which is a coveted spot in Cavanaugh, late at night when most girls are asleep. One day they decided to dedicate the spot to Officer Kelly because she had become a permanent fixture of Cavanaugh, someone who was always there to greet you after late-night study sessions and social events. The girls of Cavanaugh wanted to thank her for her gracious support, so they decided to dedicate the corner where they always saw her in. Thus, Officer Kelly's Corner was born.
Later, the night before my first day of college, everything hit me at once. I look around my dorm room filled with a collage of pictures of all of my loved ones that my parents helped me put up earlier, and what should have brought happy memories instead brought up my newfound loneliness. Although I was living with three other girls in a quad-style dorm, they were strangers to me, and since my parents had left the very same morning, I felt immense loneliness because I was incredibly far away from my parents and family. I didn’t have my support system anymore. I felt as though I had been left there all by myself. It was late at night, and my roommate was asleep. I didn’t want to wake her up with my uncontrollable sobs, so I tiptoed outside my dorm and went to the closest area near me: Kelly’s Corner.
After hanging up the phone with my mom, promising her that I'm alright, my eyes start to water. Oh great. As the tears start to fall down my cheek again, loud sounds of laughing catch my attention, and as I peer out the window, I see a group of girls so consumed in conversation with their friends that they're oblivious to how truly loud they're laughing. That view caused an immediate pang in my heart. Will that ever be me? Or will I spend the rest of my days at Notre Dame crying on this ugly couch?
This became my nightly routine for the first few weeks of college. Every night I would sneak outside my dorm room and sit on the couch in Kelly’s Corner, calling my family and best friends from home.
As the weeks went by, nights of me crying to my loved ones over FaceTime soon became few and far between. My time spent at Kelly’s Corner went from me solely crying to my loved ones about missing my family and friends to Kelly’s corner being a space where I started to spend my time laughing and studying.
After coming back late to our dorm one night, my friend Emma and I knew that our roommates would be asleep, so we decided to sit on the couch in Kelly’s Corner and stayed up until three in the morning talking to each other. Randomly, we started to talk about how we had both, at some point at the beginning of our time in Cavanaugh Hall, cried on this couch. After making this connection, I said, “Emma, oh my gosh! I literally cried out here talking to my best friend last night; that’s so funny!” Emma joked, “Oh my god, should we call this The Cry Corner?”
Thus, the name The Cry Corner was born. Now, instead of spending my time crying in this corner, it’s a place where I spend my time talking to my friends. We would text each other “Let’s meet at The Cry Corner” and it became an inside joke.
Despite its name, The Cry Corner became a place where I did everything but cry.
Opening my dorm room door, I take twelve steps and turn the corner to a very familiar ugly couch. Shimming around the circular coffee table, I plop down on the left couch cushion (yes, the one that has the butt indent) because it's honestly the more comfortable side of the couch. Propping my feet up on top of the opposite arm of the couch, I sit back comfortably. In the span of a few minutes, several people pass by The Cry Corner. I receive several smiles, greetings, and waves as various girls from my dorm pass by. It's after these moments that I officially accept Notre Dame as my new home.
I used to view The Cry Corner as a window to my past, where I could spend time with my friends and family from back home. Now, The Cry Corner is something entirely different to me. I can always continue to call my loved ones from home, but in front of me is the opportunity to have new experiences, meet new people, and grow as a person. That ugly couch I first saw on move-in day is now the window to my future memories at Notre Dame.