When I started writing these posts to seniors my freshman year, I only had a handful of graduating friends. Boy has that changed! This year, it feels like the majority of my close friends are graduating, and that is giving me all of the feels.
Seniors, I can't believe you're graduating. You have been my friends for the last three years, and I have no idea what college will be like next year without you. I am experiencing a whole new sense of loss as you all move off to do amazing things because there will literally be only one year that I will be at college without you, and that year will be all kinds of different. It's really hard for me to think of what I want to say to you in this post.
I tried to compile a list of graduating seniors to shout out in this post as I have done in years past, but I quickly filled my screen with names of friends, and realized that there were more people than I have time and space to write to and about. I'm going to go with some anecdotes and generalizations instead, but please know that you are all in my heart and on my mind as I'm writing.
My first friends (real friends, not the randos from orientation) were the four girls who lived in the first floor "harem" of my dorm. I met this group on a trip to the campus telescope the Friday evening before classes started, and I thought that they were just so cool. It turned out that they had chosen to live all together in adjacent doubles after meeting in their freshman dorm the year before. I lived on the third floor in a "dingle," and my floor had bonded without me while fratting in the beginning weeks of school. I literally saw these first floor friends every day. I would be able to see if their light was on as I walked in the front doors of the dorm, and would usually stop by to say hi on my way to my own room. Freshman year in particular would have been so much more lonely without this group of friends, and these last three years have been enhanced by your friendship.
Now, through one of these girls (the theatre major), I ended up meeting a whole other group of theater friends on the night we dyed her hair blue. The girl who did the actual dying of the hair later became one of my close friends as we worked on shows together and hung out a lot. The two bystanders in this hair dye adventure also became my good friends. I have worked on shows with them, gone on adventures in the city with them, and really become great friends with them over the past three years. All of these friends united by the night of the hair dye are moving away, and I will miss them deeply. To all of you: college would not have been the same if we hadn't met that random night.
I think my next introduction to a fabulous group of current seniors was when I started doing theater. I met a bunch of people working on Ragtime, and as I continued my introduction to student theater and met more people as I worked on shows, I gained an amazing group of friends in all classes. I think that those friendships really took shape on the couches in the student center (which no longer exist), and while we do not have that gathering space anymore, I still love seeing my theater friends wherever I run into them. I saw a bunch of you on Dillo Day, and could not imagine a more fun way to wrap up our mutual student time together. To each and every one of you who I have worked with, played with, taken class with, and grown to love: stay amazing, never forget to be awesome (because you are), and keep doing the wonderful things that you do.
I'm going to address my next note to the residents of the LC. I got to know you through one member of this group in particular, but I quickly became friends with all of you. Visiting Green Door has been an integral part of my college life, and as you all move into your next adventures (and you've all got great stuff lined up; I'm so happy for you), know that your "non-res" will be thinking of you.
My last note is to my Hillel friends. I met most of you when you were my Freshman Fest "counselors," but that distinction quickly went away. Spending Friday nights with you these last three years and serving on RLC together has united us, and I genuinely love the conversations we have about things that are important. I think that most of you are staying in the vicinity, so I will definitely be working out times to visit with you, but it will be very strange not to see you each week next year.
I want to close this post witha quotation from Muhammad Ali: "Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It's not something you learn in school. But if you haven't learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven't learned anything."
Today is awesome because I wrote this post without crying.
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