Bound by Time
There have been moments when college has gone by painfully slow. Times where you look out the window at rain rippling through Easton Pond and wonder how you will make it to the end of the day, or, even worse, the end of the week. In these moments I often reflect on why I chose a career that requires so much time and buy-in.
On the other hand, there are moments when you realize that it is somehow the end of March and you are graduating in 6 weeks. Moments when you are running so fast through life that you don’t even realize how much you have accomplished or how much time you have spent with your friends until you have a moment to pause.
Right now I feel like I am living my life in both of these phases. I get to the end of the month and wonder where the time has gone but sit in my bed at the end of the day wondering how much longer I will have to exist in this reality. A strange dichotomy built by the construct of time indeed. Somehow a month is made up of many days but a day feels longer than the months.
One thing I do to get through the constant game of tug of war going through my head is to reminisce on the moments I have had. To ground myself in the reality that time moves only as fast as you remember it. During this dramatic end to my college experience, I have found hope and somberness in reflecting on my favorite memories here.
I tend to find difficulty in understanding moments in the context of pure joy or fulfillment. I think I, like many who reside in human nature, tend to hold on to the things that ruin moments. I find it difficult to pinpoint any event in my life that doesn’t have an ounce of negativity drowning out the good moments.
Times when I have felt completely at peace tend to be when I am with those who I care about the most. At the same time, it can be these same people who bring the most turmoil to your life. All of the extra high moments you get with those who are your closest friends can often come with equally dramatic low points.
One specific high from my college experience has been my friends ‘get-togethers’. Since we are all so busy, we actually take the time to schedule these into our lives. They are different every time. Sometimes games, sometimes deep conversations, sometimes movies. There could be dinner involved or just a walk around campus. Regardless, it is just the time together that is the most important aspect of college to me. It is something I wish often I had more of and comes with the fear of never seeing my friends again after graduation. But I tend to think these types of relationships come with this type of heartache. And what would life be if your friends weren’t worth the fear of losing them?
Another memory that I have held onto throughout my most difficult moments is the best $60 I have ever spent. $60 to do a round trip, small bus day tour through the highlands of Scotland. It was my freshman year when I was studying abroad in London. For spring break, my roommate and I decided to go up to Scotland for reading week (London’s version of spring break). The bus trip left early in the morning and we drove through Glencoe, Loch Ness, and Inverness. We stopped and got a traditional Scottish lunch on the river. It was one of the coldest days we had while we were up there but nothing ruined the view. Our bus driver had the greatest stories to tell about Scotland and played traditional Scottish music for us throughout the ride back to Glasgow. The day as I remember it was perfect. Regardless of the mental fog and intruding anxieties that I remember feeling that day.
I think this goes to show one very important thing. Your days do not have to be perfect for your months to be wonderful and your memories to slow down. Even though I cannot remember a day of pure bliss in my life I still remember a good life. I believe we as humans tend to put too much pressure on ourselves to have unmolested experiences. We get so anxious about something ruining a moment we forget that the moment will still allow memories to ground us in the future. Even very significant life events and nauseating amounts of mental load can still permit a fortunate memory.
Now that my time at Arcadia is about to end, I am making an effort to spend more time in my memories. To slow down my quickening months and make it easier to get through my long days, I enjoy thinking about all of the good things that have happened while I have been here. On to the next four years, and the four after that.
