Half There, Half Gone: Living like a Ghost

The academic year at Hollins University is drawing to a close. Today will be the last day of exams, I finished everything on my academic to-do list on Friday afternoon, and graduation is in less than a week. Many students have already gone home for the summer, and I, along with seniors, their friends, and the other RAs, will be through the 20th.  Then I will finally be heading to D.C. for a few days, then up to New Hampshire for a week, then back to D.C.  But, while excitement for the summer has been filling me, I've also been struck with moments of a feeling of uncertainty and loss.

Tinker Day, 2011

I have one year left at this place.  Just one.

I have climbed Tinker Mountain three times and will do it once more.

I have lived in Tinker Hall three years and will do it once more.

I have suffered the perils of Moody food for three years and will do it once more.

I have completed fall finals three times and will do it once more.

Soon, the Hollins bubble will pop for me and about a hundred more of us.  We will move on from this place and encounter old friends and new friends, old jobs and new jobs, old homes and new homes.  Maybe we'll be back in two years for our two-year reunion -- maybe we won't.  Maybe, three years after that, we'll be back for our five-year reunion -- maybe we won't.  By then, some of us will have families, will have jobs, will have obligations that will keep us from the Blue Ridge Mountains which surround campus.  Things will hold us back and we will sit at our windows, watching the sky overhead and wondering how Hollins has changed, because change it does -- just as we change.

The other day, I packed up some boxes and put them in storage. Since then, I've been staring at the posters left on my wall and wondering when the appropriate time to take them down is.  Maybe I should have done it then.  Maybe I should wait until the day before I leave.  I hate taking posters down.  Doing so makes the walls look bare, the room less cluttered -- it makes me feel like a ghost living in my own space, half there and half gone.

I expect that is what a lot of next year will feel like.  I didn't have this problem in high school.  High school was horrible for me.  It was not, as many of my classmates expressed, the best year of my life.  Friends were few and far between, classes were not challenging, traditions were silly and meaningless, there was no sense of community.  But here, I have all of those things in abundance.  Despite the challenges I've faced here and the challenges I've faced while I've been here, Hollins is home.  As much as I am eager to start life in the "real world," I'm just as eager to stay here, keep taking classes, continue to learn, make more friends, participate in more traditions.

We are all just ghosts.

A lot of colleges seem to advertise that they will prepare their students for life after college in the sense that they will learn a skill they can use in a job.  At Hollins, I've learned so much about not only writing, but also how to be myself, how to have healthy relationships, and how to take care of myself.  I'm not convinced I would have the same experience at any other institution.  Maybe it's the size of Hollins that makes a difference.  Its population is about a quarter of what my high school had.  Maybe it's that it's a single-sex school. There aren't many out there and the bonds of sisterhood are great indeed.

Whatever it is, Hollins is an incredibly special place for me.  I am dreading leaving next year, though I know there are many great things ahead of me.  I have accomplished so much here, from being published for the first time to working as a head resident assistant.  Nothing could ever replace the experiences I have had here.  I have had amazing support from friends, faculty, and staff.

I have one year left to really immerse myself in and appreciate this place.  All I can do is do my best not to take it for granted, savor every moment of my time here, and celebrate not the end of it all, but that I was fortunate enough to experience it to begin with.