Being a graduating senior less than two weeks away from Commencement inflicts a certain mental conflict. I’m caught between having so many regrets over things I never got to do and things I wish were different, and knowing that everything turned out the way it was supposed to.
As one door closes and another opens, it’s both painful and exciting to take one last look back at the things I’m leaving behind. There are bright, shining moments that will remain with me forever, and there are the shadowy images of things that will brighten with time.
Some things stand out the most as I reminisce, like the friendships that disappeared between freshman and senior year and a love I’m still struggling to let go of. These are shadows that, without the correct perspective, will darken everything else.
Standing at the precipice is the perfect place to gain perspective. I’m about to swan dive off the cliff of formal education and plunge head-first into the ice-cold water that is the real world, hoping my experiences have thickened my skin and given me survival skills. These last four years suddenly seem so small.
Supposing I live until I’m at least 80, I will have experienced 20 four-year periods by the time I die. I will have experienced 20 college-lengths; I’ve already lived almost six of them. While these past four years at Fredonia were essential in creating my future — I grew as a person, loved, lost, laughed, smiled, learned, partied, cried, ended up in the back of a police car — they’re not the only years that will matter.
Right now, the future looks like a big field of zombie fog to me. I have no idea what’s out there or where I’ll be in two months, let alone 10 years. But what I do know is that my four years at Fredonia will be part of the foundation that makes up the house that is my life. However, it, won’t be the whole house.
It may not seem like it now, but when I’m living in a mansion with a husband and a dog and a child and a career (this will be many, many years from now), I’ll be something completely different than the college senior I am today. All the shadows in my Fredonia chapter will have turned to light because of the brightness of these Fredonia memories:
- Making some of the best friends I’ve ever had
- Traveling places I’d only dreamed of going
- Getting my money’s worth — and then some — of new knowledge
- Learning how to be strong and independent
- Learning how to accept criticism and admit faults
- Being the Editor in Chief of a truly remarkable newspaper
Maybe things didn’t turn out exactly how I wanted them to. But I honestly believe that everything happens for a reason, even if it takes years for that reason to show itself. After I pack up my car and drive away from Fredonia for the last time — as I close the door to my Fredonia chapter — I know I’ll be leaving everything as it’s supposed to be.
