I first felt it when my ottoman broke. It’s one of those classic college storage ottomans — the kind that opens up to hold whatever you want (usually some sort of contraband the RA shouldn’t find). I sit on mine every morning, and I guess the wear and tear of not properly aligning the lid quite right finally caused the seat to cave in.
I was annoyed. My chair was broken. And my next thought was, “well, it’s not worth buying a new one since I’ll be leaving soon anyway.” And there it was.
Suddenly, I crossed the threshold: I was close enough to graduation that it wasn’t worth replacing broken things.
A few weeks later, the shoe rack in the entryway of my apartment broke. My roommate and I laughed about how it had been falling apart slowly for the past few months, and now that it could barely hold more than one pair of shoes at a time, it was finally on its last legs. But we both agreed it was too close to “the end” to bother trying to repair it — we could survive a broken shoe rack in the time we had left. Which was, as we were finding increasingly hard to ignore, not a lot of time.
The month of April has brought on a lot of strange things: springtime snow, pressing deadlines, and the undeniable feeling of something nearing its end. I have finally reached a point where every day, whether I’d like to or not, I think about how little time there is until I graduate college and am shoved out into the mysterious abyss of “Real Life.” And though this has brought on many feelings — panic, joy, relief, terror — it has also sparked a certain kind of joie de vivre made possible only as one approaches the end of something.
With an expiration date looming, there is an instinct to make the most of things while you can. Bucket lists spring from nowhere. Confessions are made. Risks are taken. What was once a foreign, formless concept is suddenly staring you in the face: graduation is here. And where you maybe once felt fear or apprehension, or even apathy, something kicks into drive. It’s either this month that you finally try Rochester’s famous garbage plate, or never. You either plan that trip with your friends now, or it will never happen. Now any hypothetical is slapped with an ultimatum: It’s either real and happens right now, or it stays a daydream forever.
It’s a scary thing, but a beautiful one. It’s a reminder to live things to the fullest, and to not leave regrets behind. The logical knowledge that all things end is no match for the innate human capacity for adaptation. But there is a wonderful, brief period of time when the feeling finally sinks in, and suddenly the here and now is real, finite, and special. Small things become huge: walking to class on a nice day, a kind professor, a joke with friends. And big things become manageable: putting yourself out there, trying a new skill, changing your routine. Because if not now, when?
I’ve only been able to find this feeling a few times in my life, every time on the edge between something old and something just beginning. But each time, I hold onto it as a reminder that with every ending, no matter how bitter or how sweet, there are some things worth holding onto and others worth letting go. It’s a reminder that these moments that I’m suddenly grateful for or these opportunities that I’m suddenly ready to seize were here for much longer than I was able to appreciate them, and that in my next chapter of life (wherever that leads me), it’s worth slowing down to make the most of what I have. I’m not sure if the lesson ever sticks for very long — like I said, humans are excellent at adapting and settling in — but it stays a little longer each time I experience it. So take it from a senior: appreciate everything, even the mediocre things, and never underestimate how quickly time will go by. Make the most of what you have for all the time that you have it. And of course, remember to buy a storage ottoman that actually lasts.
