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Goodbyes may be the thing I am worst at. It doesn’t matter what kind.
Like right now — there is no face staring back at me, no physicality involved in this send-off that warrants social cues and forced smiles to hide tight throats and wet eyes. There are only the words I choose to write on a screen. But words are hard.
My body fights back and refuses to type, dismissing the notion that something is about to end. Maybe these words are also some kind of diversion to avoid saying the things I want to say. But goodbyes are harder.
How do I say goodbye?
I turn to the words of others through every inconvenience, every triumph and tragedy, through every change in temperament, weather, or sleep, and even when I am not searching for them at all. This is no exception. My favorite writer, Helene Cixous (read her if you haven’t!) once said:
A heartbreaking paradox: if only I can finish my work so that it will live. Yet if it is finished, completed, a part of me but departed from me, I lost it alive, living but separate; and if it does not leave me, it is incomplete, insufficient, and half-dead that I keep it.
How do I say goodbye?
I don’t know. I don’t know if anyone knows. But I know that I want this goodbye to live.
So here are some words I wish I could tell my past college selves, in hopes that maybe these are the words you will someday need to hear, that you wish you had heard some time ago, or that you need to hear right now.
FRESHMAN YEAR
You Didn’t Fail
I applied to ten different schools for undergrad. This was mostly the result of spending twelve years in a school system that fostered an environment of misogyny and anti-creativity. I believed that this was what school was. I applied to ten schools because for some reason applying to so many felt like applying to none. I didn’t want to go. The exception to this was the pipe dream of moving far away to a big city where I could write in a place that cherished it. For anyone that knows what tuition is like in cities, then you know why I did not end up there. The University of Rhode Island was my tenth choice. It was the school I ended up with.
I walked through my entire freshman year believing I had failed (I hadn’t). As a Rhode Island native, I ended up at the school where “everyone ends up” (They don’t). I threw away any chances I had at becoming a writer (Couldn’t be farther from the truth), and my hard work and dream of ever escaping a world of small conservatism was futile (I think you get the point).
I wish I could go back and shake myself, physically jerk my body back and forth and spread both my eyes as wide as they could go and yell “Just because you ended up here does not mean you failed!” And then I would hug my younger self. Strangely enough, it took a global pandemic to ground me and make me realize this.
These past four years have arguably been the best of my life. I rekindled my love for learning in an insatiable way. I have met professors I will keep in touch with for life. I have done my best writing here. I have met my favorite people here. I have only done these things because I made the best of a situation that had me believing I was a failure before I even started.
Success and failure are trivial, subjective things. We define what they are ourselves, from an internal place of, usually, self-doubt and being too hard on ourselves. You will “succeed.” You will “fail.” But you cannot stop. Because one day you will see that your failures have turned into your successes and it will make you want to throw your head back and laugh at the way life works. Freshman year will be a time of change. Allow yourself the grace to explore it.
SOPHOMORE YEAR
It Will Pass
The global pandemic was the first thing I wrote about for Inside Rec.
As the days grew shorter, and the world grew colder, I found myself in a dark place. Sitting in my room day in and day out…school felt more like a never-ending homework assignment. My screen time went up, and so did my media intake, as the news, and what seemed like everywhere I looked, was riddled with death and chaos, promising that things were only going to get worse. (A Year Behind a Screen)
Sophomore year was the darkest year of my life. My college experience had been so brief it was as if it didn’t happen at all. My mental health had hit its lowest. I began to exercise twice a day out of desperation and punishment. And then I stopped moving my body entirely. I couldn’t find a path out of this pit.
Yet here I am, three years later. I did it, and you can too.
I called a therapist. And then I hung up. And I kept calling and hanging up, feeling so embarrassed and weak and unsure. But on one of those attempts, I didn’t hang up. (A Year Behind a Screen)
Therapy was a long road, but it helped and still does. I had post-it’s all over my room with quotes and cliches that were all variations of reasons not to quit. I sang the Imperial March in my head for hours to not think about the world falling apart. I took it by day, by hour, and during the hardest times, by minute.
I hope that the situation we were all put in with the pandemic doesn’t happen again. But either way, there will be valleys and peaks in your life. It will pass. On one of my fervent searches for reassurance at the time (when I should have been paying attention to my fourth Zoom class of the day), I came across a Pete Davidson interview that gave me a kind of catharsis. This was more or less the dialogue:
Interviewer: “But it always gets better, doesn’t it?”
Pete Davidson: “Oh yeah, it always gets better…but it always gets worse too!”
I don’t know why this resonated with me so much at the time. I think maybe it’s the way a bad time can make you feel like your feelings and everything else are permanently bad. It’s not. Get the help you need (URI Counseling Center), move your body because you want to (Our facilities rock for that), and know that it will pass.
Junior Year
It’s all About Balance
Okay I lied, there may be something I am worse at than saying goodbye. Finding balance.
Balance is another one of these things that everyone has an opinion about but no one really knows the answer. Maybe that’s the answer in itself. But coming back from a global pandemic to a college campus I had only known for four months was intensely confusing. So much so that I also wrote about it for Inside Rec once before.
My college experience has been comprised of a bunch of murky memories and time stamps that have no real meaning. An entire year feels made up, whilst another somehow feels like a single day and an entire lifetime at the same time. And during it all, it seems I have been longing for a change, a change in scenery, a change in pace of life, but now that it seems to be coming, the truth is, I couldn’t be more unsure, more uncertain, and more afraid. (From Freshman, To Junior, To Freshman Again)
There is more to balance than just school, work, and everything else. That’s the widely-used model amongst college students. But balance is also the relationships you make, the values you believe in, and the passions you pursue. It’s trying to figure out what to do with your stress, joy, sadness, and uncertainty. It’s everything life is throwing at you and how you deal with it.
I am a senior with a 4.0 GPA and three different courses of study. I work a part-time job on campus that often becomes full-time (Live, Love, Campus Rec!). I am a part of numerous clubs and organizations. I run a freelance business on my own time. I pursue my passions of writing, acting, and modeling. I am saying this all not as any form of bragging, but to do quite the opposite. Balance is hard. I’m still figuring it out.
Junior year was the time where, when the clock struck midnight, my partner and I were still at our desks staring at dimly lit computer screens and looking like death. Our lives were only work. Just like high school, this is the point in your college career where things begin to get pushed upon you again — Internships, plans for post-graduation, networking, finishing up programs, etc.
My version of finding balance is pursuing what I want and reminding myself that rest is productive. As someone who likes to stay busy and involved, having different avenues of life available allows me to feel less claustrophobic in my responsibilities. I also am grateful to have a partner who encourages me to rest. Therapy and friendships are good for this too. Hobbies, exercise, and naps are also great.
Senior Year
Choose Yourself
I graduate in ten days. I move out in eight. This is my last project for Campus Rec. There are people I care about that I may never see again. I fear uncertainty.
I hate transitional periods in my life. Not because I hate the transition itself – I actually think this allows so much room for growth. I hate the questions people feel obliged to ask when a transition comes. For example, whenever someone says that they’re graduating, what does everyone feel like they must ask?
What are your plans? / Do you know what you’re going to do? / What’s next?
No, you aren’t a jerk if you ask a senior this question. I’m sure some students even get excited about it. Maybe I’m just grumpy. But in a time where the future seems so uncertain, I am left only with the reminder of this when these kinds of questions arise.
I see myself living two lives. The life I want, and the life others want me to live. I think just by conversations I have with other graduating seniors, especially creatives, this seems like the ultimate strife. There is a path of seeming security, the traditional way of getting a job, getting a house, settling down, raising a family, etc. This has never been what I want. In fact, this kind of life terrifies me.
Seniors, I am no wiser nor more experienced than you. I am a writer and an actor who works in marketing because this is what the world appreciates from creatives (this is a generalization, but I think those who know, know). I am stuck between living a life of security, or living the life that I want. I have no clue where I will end up, what I’m going to do, or what’s next. To me, this feels like liberation. To my parents, this feels…less so.
I believe we should choose ourselves. In every sense. Choose what makes you feel purposeful, powerful, and rapturous. We have something like 20,000 days left (if we’re lucky). Life really is too short to do something you don’t daydream about. Choose yourself.
I feel like I used a lot of cliches in this piece. Maybe you didn’t notice or maybe I’m just a bad writer. At one time or another I would agree. But I have learned that cliches are cliche due to the very meaning of them; they are overtly used because what they say has merit.
How do I say goodbye?
URI Campus Recreation, my home for four years. We have gone through the peaks and valleys together. When the world was uncertain this place has rooted my feet back into the ground. I am so proud of the work we have done. I am so thankful for the people I have met. And I will cherish each memory so closely. Because every period I have discussed above, I knew I would wake up the next morning, go to work, and have this place and these people to depend upon.
To Jenn and Lacey, who granted me their full knowledge of the world of marketing and Campus Rec. To Anthony and Michael and Ava and Lizzy and Rebecca and Tara for sticking with me and working just as hard. To Bella and Hailee and Danielle and Talya and Casey for joining our team (You all will do great!). To Sean for helping me keep my head afloat when I felt like capsizing. To Haley and Laura for jumping in. And to every other person who has interacted with Campus Recreation in some capacity, thank you. I wish you all nothing but the best, and I hope that you continue to help others navigate life and these fickle, bewildering, and enriching years.
How do I say goodbye?
I’m not sure. But I am sure that I will miss you.
Keep in touch.