I don't really want to write this letter, because it's the obvious letter to write, but I sort of have to. I tried to write a letter on my aversion to athletics, but I realized I was just avoiding reality. Avoiding my fate.
Trying to skip out on my destiny.
You see, I keep saying "It's so weird that this semester is over." And then I'll realize I'm saying it to seniors, and they'll say, "Yeah." Because for them, it's even stranger. In fact, my insistence on talking about how weird it is for me could even be considered, by some parties, insensitive.
Leaving is the saddest part of college -- possibly for those leaving, but certainly for those left. In high school, I had friends who graduated before me, but it wasn't the same. Partly because I didn't really like them that much -- my closest friends were, really, all my year -- but really because the distinctions between different grades were pretty distinct. At college, when seniors graduate, you feel the burn.
The hardest part of leaving (or watching others leave) isn't saying goodbye to the people you're close with. Chances are good that as long as you move to New York, you'll see them again. No, the weirdest thing is the people you're not that close with. That kid you stopped being friends with after freshman year for no real reason, who you still kind of like, and still say hello to at parties. The people you bum cigarettes from on the Green. That boy you always wanted to make out with, but never even met. Every single person you wave to without stopping to exchange greetings.
They are the real losses.
This shouldn't be sappy, but reminiscences kind of have to be. Because that is what college is about. It's so temporal, and so busy. Excitement, and transience, is everywhere. People come, people go. Classes change. The restaurants you eat in change. Houses change. By the time I graduate, I will have had eight different "rooms" in five years. That is, when you think about it, pretty odd. And also, pretty annoying.
I don't have any advice for seniors, really, or for the rest of us for that matter. Chances are, most of you soon-to-be-graduates will get jobs eventually. Many of you will have families. One or two will end up in jail. A slightly higher number will end up in rehab. (Hey, it's Penn. I'm being honest.) And, freshman, sophomores, juniors -- the same holds true for you.
But in the meantime, I bid adieu to all of the seniors I have ever smoked up with in random frat houses. And the rest of you, too. Even those I haven't met, and wouldn't want to. It's been real.
"Summertime, and the livin's easy" (Or, at least that's what Sublime says in their version of the tune, and I'm sticking with them) - Yona
