SENIOR ISSUE: I can’t stop crying about my looming graduation

By Anya Shroff

I can’t stop crying about my looming graduation

by fourth year Claire D’Agostino

I know it’ll all turn out okay but the idea of change is just hard.

Even just writing this article is hard—it’s the last piece I'll ever write for The Chapel Bell, an organization I've been a part of for three years. I've watched as members have developed into friends and as people who just liked to write poetry have turned to poets; as a community has formed around me and shaped me. I started going to meetings, not knowing anyone or what to expect. I think in the first meeting we played speed dating—I sat across from people I didn’t know and told them about myself. Soon, that changed into sharing the highs and lows of my week in every meeting: the most mundane, yet intimate details of my life. 

I think that’s what I'll miss the most about college: the idea that everywhere I go, I’m probably within 300 feet of someone I might know. Even if it’s just one of my ‘campus characters’: a stranger I always saw on the route 12 bus every other day of junior year whose face I can never forget. It might even be my friend’s ex boyfriend, and I’ll have to face the reality of the awkward, thin-lipped smile I’ll muster and the half wave I’ll have to hold up. I’ll miss immediately texting my friends’ group chat, you’ll never believe who i just saw… 

I’ll miss walking through Park Hall, thinking about every classroom where I made a new friend or found a subject that really made me passionate about writing. My sophomore year, I had two classes back-to-back, they were across the hall from each other. As I left my first class, two girls followed me to the next one, where we realized we had so much in common and became close friends, bonding over our shared love of The Picture of Dorian Gray. Group project meetings became hangouts. Eventually, one of my friends moved states away, but I still think about our trio every time I pass the classrooms. 

I’ve tried really hard to avoid making this as cheesy as possible, but I am an English major who can’t stop mourning my upcoming graduation. The next thing that’ll come out of my mouth will be how I’ll bleed red and black forever, and that I’ll always be a Bulldawg. Since I’ve already been so cliche, I’ll just embrace it. Seniors, hug your friends today. Never forget the community that you have around you. 

I feel so much anxiety about how there is no more next semester. It’s just the next phase of life. I can’t stop thinking about how happy I am for all of my friends and watching them as they go into their future lives in new cities with new jobs. But I will just miss them all so much. Of course, I keep comparing my plans to theirs, but no amount of jealousy can take away how proud of them I am. 

Even though I won’t get to see my friends every day, I’ll keep tabs on them by looking at their locations, peering into their lives from hours and miles away, but never forgetting the memories we share.

I always sign my weekly update emails to The Chapel Bell off with TCB___(fill in the blank). It wasn’t a tradition started by me, it was one that began with all of the Editor-in-Chiefs before me. But this is my last sign off, so here goes…

TCBelieveinYourselves.

Change is hard, but take it from someone who’s in your position: I am proud of you. I know you can do it.