Tomorrow, I begin my Senior Year of College. And I’m struggling to write about it.
When friends and family are reminded of my upcoming Senior Year, they give one of two responses. The first, “That’s crazy!” is an explanation of disbelief. Time has flown, they say, as if my college career elapsed in a second––and neither of us were paying attention. They’re saying: you’re suddenly so old. Meanwhile, the second response, “That’s exciting!” is delivered with an envious smile. The intoxicating romance of college life flashes before them. Everyone would love to go back, it seems. They’re saying: you’re still so young.
So, which am I: old or young?
In general, these remarks are as harmless as they are cliché. But they’re also hiding something. Because here’s what “crazy” and “exciting” don’t admit: Senior is just a fancy word for Ending.
I don’t know exactly how to describe this, but there’s something deep within me, something intensely fragile, that is terrified of endings. They never come when I’m ready. They’re never clean, never quick, and never remedied. Moreover, I struggle to enjoy anything good when it’s for the last time.
It feels like the glamor of Senior Year somehow disrespects the finality of everything––and the harshness of what’s to come. There’s nothing “crazy” nor “exciting” about that fact that, in nine months, I will be ejected into a world struggling to breathe. I will be asked to fix this world, and then not paid enough, and then asked why I’m struggling.
Maybe I’m being cynical. Maybe post-college life won’t be so bad. Even if it is mandatory.
The thing is, though, I’m not a cynical person. I want to embrace the beauty of my Senior Year. I want to wrap myself in the nine months ahead, finding moments of close-to-the-chest joy that don’t last…but maybe, don’t need to.
When I think about endings in the real world, the best one is certainly a sunset. If day must become night, then sunset is certainly a beautiful way.
Of course, it’s nearly impossible (and admittedly lame) to write about sunsets. “What can we say about the clichéd beauty of sunsets?” novelist John Green asks. After years of amazing us, sunsets have worn through writers’ words of admiration, rendering them mawkish or saccharine. Sunsets are daily occurrences, universal and ordinary. And yet, they’re startling. When we see the natural world at its most spectacular…there’s not much to say.
“All I can say about sunsets,” Green offers, “is that sometimes when the world is between day and night, I’m stopped cold by its splendor, and I feel my absurd smallness, and you’d think that would be sad, but it isn’t. It only makes me grateful.”
So, what can I say about clichéd “craziness” and “excitement” of Senior Year? Not much, I guess. Green is right; when it comes to certain endings, triteness can’t be avoided. All we can do is watch and not stop watching, letting the colors wash over us.
In the nine-month ending ahead, I hope to be occasionally stopped cold by its splendor.
Quiet Histories 