Closing Time: When gratitude and nostalgia come to a crossroads

A few weeks ago, two of my best friends and I went out for our weekly happy hour. After being turned away by two of our go-to locations, we ended up at a spot that we often passed up.

We sat around for three hours answering prompts from the We’re Not Really Strangers card deck with Pickletinis and french fries to accompany us, a setup that warrants a long night of chatting. My favorite.

With each card and sip, I realized how lucky I am to have gone through these past two years with friends that push me to grow and become a better version of myself.

We’ve all experienced the trial-and-error lifestyle of college together. With many errors and many successes, we’ve learned more about ourselves and each other than I would have thought to be possible a mere four years ago.

Three hours later, the night was wrapping up (the restaurant was closing, and we did not need any more Pickletinis). We pulled a prompt related to growth. While I don’t remember the exact question, I do remember the conversation that followed.

We spent closing time reminiscing on how crazy it is that our four years of college are coming to an end, how all of the people that we see every day by happenstance will be packing their bags and moving across the country, getting married, all of that scary stuff.

We talked about how we lost a big chunk of normalcy due to COVID-19, a normalcy that is unique to college: All-nighters with friends in a reserved study room, living with your best friends, recounting the night before in the mornings, running into friends of friends of friends and feeling like you’ve known them forever.

It’s a normalcy that really isn’t normal at all in the real world. It’s easy to miss in advance.

When I think about it too much, it’s natural to feel as though we have been robbed of what the second half of our college experience should have been.

But by the end of the conversation, we realized that that’s actually not the case. Come May of 2021, our time at Lehigh is up. And while it is ending in far-from-normal times, our time is up for a reason.

We have nothing left to learn from this time and place in our lives. I don’t mean that in a self-righteous or pessimistic way. More like, how lucky are we to have entered an experience with no idea of how much it would teach us?

We deserve to be proud of how through it all, we have made room for growth, even when it was hard. I believe that as our time in undergrad comes to a close, we should reflect on what it has taught us and prepared us for whatever comes next. We should bask in the familiarity of a place that once made us homesick and realize that we are departing this experience as stronger versions of ourselves.

As we round the bend on our college experience, we cross a bridge of nostalgia for the people and places that were once strangers who turned into those we cannot imagine our lives without.

We cannot imagine our lives without these people and experiences because we arguably wouldn’t be who we are today without them. We wouldn’t be so ready to enter a new chapter of life with the confidence that this one gave us.

I've always found that nostalgia and gratitude come at a crossroads. I'm rarely nostalgic for a time that wasn't great. These past four years are unique in that they haven't just been great. They've been challenging, eye-opening, and fulfilling all at once. That's why I think it can feel so hard to say goodbye to them even when you're ready. It was a time that was nothing like we planned, but somehow turned out to be better. We turned out to be better.

I think back to who I was four years ago, and I am filled with gratitude that I pushed through all of the doubts and trials that came with this chapter of life. Because I can boldly state that I have learned, experienced, and overcame all that I can in my time here.

I feel ready to take on a place that’s anything but familiar. I feel ready for road trips to see friends in their respective cities and watch as our lives unfold in all different directions. I feel ready for new experiences to challenge the version of myself that I’ve grown to know during my time in college. I feel ready to look back on who I am today four years from now in disbelief by how much I’ve grown since.

Of course I will soak up these last few months of familiarity with the people that I love most. I will always remember that it is because of these people and this place that I feel ready to experience something new and grow in ways that I never thought possible. I owe it all to these past four years and the person that they pushed me to become. I'm ready to meet new parts of myself in the experiences that await.

Second Semester Senior Year Thoughts