The hardest part about going back
Graduation 2009
It is official. I have been a college graduate for a year. I have had a degree in my hand for 365 days. And today, I am watching two of my best friends walk across a stage in front of the most beautiful building I have ever called home to shake hands with one of the most inspiring women I have ever had the pleasure of meeting to join me in the ranks of illustrious alumnae of that school that isn’t Notre Dame in South Bend.
The strange thing is that this doesn’t feel all that different from last year. The fear of the unknown is still present, even though both of my friends know what they’re doing when they wake up tomorrow. The undercurrent of nervous excitement as the students process through the double doors of the second oldest building on campus is still palpable. Some of the women graduating still look like they’re going to throw up, run back inside and lock their doors and bar the real world from their lives. And others are sitting there nervously fidgeting and thinking about the fact that they don’t have a job or any real job prospects.
The only difference, is that today, I’m sitting in the audience instead of smack dab in the middle of the mortar board hats.
But it still sucks.
Today isn’t the first time that I’ve come back to campus since graduation. I’ve spent six weekends on campus staying with friends and heading to football games at that dear, dear brother school across the street. I ushered out the Charlie Weis era just as much as any of the seniors getting their diplomas did.
But, today is different.
Today, another part of me leaves this campus as my friends graduate.
Last year, in my final act as an employee at The Observer, the student newspaper,I wrote a goodbye column called “The Things I’ll Miss…”. In it, I wrote specific messages to each friend about why I’ll miss them and it sucked to have to say goodbye. But I always knew that I’d have a place to stay if I came back because these two friends were still here.
It’s strange to think that they won’t be here when I come back for games next year.
The hardest part about all of this, though, isn’t the fact that I’m another year older, another year more removed from campus, or that I lost two of the three rooms I could stay in for free.
The hardest part is seeing it all end again.
Last year, the end didn’t really kick in until the Friday before graduation. Senior week was bittersweet as I knew, somewhere deep down in the back of my mind, that I was experiencing a bunch of lasts, but I could supress that. But on Friday, I sprinted across campus in the pouring rain, black gown flowing behind me as I made my way to Baccalaureate and I realized that it was the beginning of the end.
Still, I could pretend that Mass was just another weekend Mass, until I saw the Senior Week edition of The Observer that my parents presented to me before dinner. And then I lost it. And I continued to lose it for the next two days.
This year, I was able to pick up the Senior Edition of The Observer myself – the end of four years of hard work, incredibly long nights in a windowless office, friendships and a special bond that only forms when you’ve emerged from said windowless office to see the sunrise with the people who just rescued hours worth of work from the abyss of computer malfunctions that other students will never know about.
I sat with family and friends at Baccalaureate – the culmination of four years of 9 p.m. Mass in pajamas in Regina with your friends.
I spent another “last” night in my beautiful home (aka the previously mentioned beautiful building I’m once again sitting in front of) – the last night of the “neighborhood” of friends, where a shoulder to cry on, drink with, eat with and party with was literally just around the corner instead of three states away.
And I’m now sitting at graduation – the last step of an undergraduate career.
But this year, I’m not allowed to lose it. I have to be the rock that my friends were for me last year because graduating is a scary thing.
I know I’ll always be able to come back to this place. And I know it will never be the same. But I also know that this place will always be home.
Graduating may suck. It might be the worst day of your life. And in other cases, it might be the best. But life after today is new and different for these graduates. No matter what, I wish them all the best, and may their job searches be simple – though with the economy still horrible, I’m more worried for them than I was for the class of 2009.
Anyway, Congratulations Class of 2010!
Liz Harter has a degree in English Writing with a minor in Spanish from Saint Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Ind. She is an award winning journalist on the collegiate level with a strong background in journalism. She currently works in PR and is a social media autodidact Google+
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