Graduation is looming--and what am I doing about it? Crying. A lot.
It started with photography. I was doing my nightly routine in the communal bathroom I share with all the girls on my floor, staring at one of the signs taped to the bathroom wall which reads: "Stop! It's flushin' time!" The note, printed midway through the year after the fourth or fifth clogged toilet had forced my RA to address bathroom etiquette, was humorous in its delivery and had been memorized by each of us visit after visit to the restroom. This time, however, I was seized with a strange sense of urgency. I had to take a picture of the sign. I didn't want to forget this.
The urgency became madness as we headed into "Dead Week," the last week of classes before final exams. My trigger-happy hand shot picture after picture of the quirkiest things--the small and remote details that I decided I couldn't live without. A campaign poster from one of the student government elections which declared the candidate: "the Pope of Dope." A baby squirrel on the balcony outside my window. The passing train that shakes the foundations of our dorm building and rattles my desk each day in passing. A flower. A stained glass window. My favorite seminar book. A wasp on the stairwell. The way the light comes down from the skylight in KAIC.
Then it was writing--I had to write everything. Poems about the wind, the process of filing stacks of data in the psychology lab, and the bobbing heads of classmates napping during lecture found their way into my bioethics notes. Quotes from my peers and professors were scrawled onto my senior thesis drafts next to short reflections about what I'd learned and who I had become in the last four years: "Learning self-control, self-reliance, and a dozen other things that start with the word 'self.' Then learning that life is not about the 'self' at all." "I like the word 'phthalate' cuz you can spit on people when you say it." "College = Love." "You're not in it for the money, you're in it because you can't live your life without words."
It wasn't until last week that I realized this inexplicable urge to document, to tie a mental string around all of my moments at the college and pull them in tight, was a coping device for May 18th. Before that, when people talked about graduation I just pretended not to hear, building a subconscious bubble around myself to guard against the idea that Life After College was more than a rumor. That I would ever have to stop being an undergrad, or leave the people and places that had become so much a part of my identity. But all good things must come to an end, and now I was experiencing it. "Empty Nest Syndrome" in reverse. Sooner than I ever thought possible, the end of my time at the College of Idaho has arrived; and I'm not ready to let go. Not yet.
When the dam broke, it broke violently. A Dove soap commercial about beauty sent me sobbing. An episode of The Office had me in hysterics. Sometimes I would feel tears on my face and not even know why they were there, like when I climbed into the seat of one of the campus vans for the final time to make my rounds, or when I (embarrassingly) broke down in the middle of my journalism seminar as we discussed our final projects. It was ridiculous. I was out of control.
Concerned, my journalism professor took me aside after class to ask me what was going on. I shrugged. How could I explain it? But he understood without me saying. Graduation is a scary time, he told me. When I was an undergraduate I had breakdowns too. I once drove for hours just to see a barn--to escape the city and clear my head a little. Trust me, you're going to be ok.
He's right, of course. And I know I will be. I have so many exciting changes coming up: being with my husband full-time (no more long distance!!!!!), finding a place of our own, getting a job that could be the beginnings of a lifetime career, preparing for grad school...At last, the fruits of my labor will start paying off, and in a year or two, all of this anxiety will just be a faint memory.
But for now...For now I'm going to let the dam break. There are more emotions associated with this place than I thought was possible to feel, and I am determined to experience them all before I leave. College of Idaho, you have made me who I am today. And while saying goodbye to you feels like I'm breaking up with half of myself, I will do so with gratitude for the impact you've made on my life and with the skills you gave me to be successful in graduation, Life After College, and Beyond.
