Kasey Moulton, Editor-in-Chief
With each email from the senior chair, I become more and more acutely aware that my time sandwiched between Isaac’s and Alder is quickly coming to a close. I always knew from the start that my days here were limited, but it’s different to see the countdown staring you in the face.
As my peers and I plan to go our separate ways, I find myself revisiting the “what ifs” more than any other part of my college career. What if I’d said no to something? What if I took more rhetoric classes? No matter how easy it is to ask these questions in retrospect, I found myself placing more value in the days I have left rather than sifting through days already gone.
As everything culminates in this final April and – thesis deadlines approach, final issues of the newspaper going to production, the registrar repeatedly sends emails asking me how to pronounce my name – I find myself not talking about what comes next.
I think I feel guilty somehow, that I’m not living up to the expectations I set for myself as a first generation college graduate: get the big girl job before commencement, head on off to a space that’s truly mine.
Although aspirational, this is not how the spring is boiling down, and it’s taken a lot of time (and near meltdowns) to be okay with that. We fuss about trajectories and order and doing everything just right, but forget that just right, much like Goldilocks’s hunt for perfectly warm porridge, is up to individual interpretation.
What’s not up to interpretation? That my friends, each of whom are trudging through their own incarnation of a final spring, are reminding me on the daily to celebrate the minutiae. No event is too unimportant for a cake, no Saturday too dull for a custom cocktail. In our rush to decide where we’ll land in a matter of weeks (yikes!), we’re remembering to find slow moments.
Even with all the big things coming to a rapidly approaching end, I think it’s the little things that I’ll look back on the most fondly.
Rachel Husband, Publisher
Like Kasey, I’ve spent a good portion of time wondering how different college might have been had little things gone differently. My list of questions and hypotheticals is long and complicated and provides the briefest, murkiest window into the four long, hard years I’ve spent at Whitman.
Who would I be if I hadn’t gotten hired for the Humor section of The Wire first semester of first year? Who would I be if I hadn’t been chosen to be in Pod #8 (if you remember the Pods, you may be entitled to a senior discount) and placed in Lyman section F where I would meet my greatest and closest friends, people I call soulmates? Who would I be if I hadn’t gotten rejected from the improv team and met my first college boyfriend? Who would I be if I hadn’t counted grass stems? Who would I be if I hadn’t gone on Semester in the West?
Who would I be if I hadn’t taken this job, taken that class, met this person, yelled at that person, kissed another and so many more? Who would I be if I had told my people I loved them more often, listened more compassionately, and cared for my body sooner and with more kindness. Surely, I would be a different girl than the one who writes to you now.
Throughout college, my mom has been a steadfast source of wisdom, care, and love from hundreds of miles away. She told me to revel in this ending, to celebrate my hard work, accomplishments, and growth. All of these moments and what ifs and who am I’s have uniquely made you into yourself, she said, so enjoy.
Of course, like I always tell her after she bestows some portion of sage wisdom, that is SO much easier said than done. My thesis is due on Monday, I have essays to write, final projects to create, furniture to sell, and past that, real life looms large. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t scared. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t thrilled beyond measure. How boring life would be if we knew what would happen in the future. How boring life would be if we knew all there was to know.
When I reflect on my time at Whitman, I’m struck by the thought that it must be appreciated, seen, felt and loved in its totality for exactly what it is and has been. One of my dearest friends repeats this to me often: be where your feet are and love the path you’ve taken.
