Senior year was the one I’d been building toward, and somehow also the one I least wanted to end.
For the first time in my degree, I had breathing room. The major requirements were mostly behind me, and I had credits to fill however I wanted. So I asked myself what I actually wanted to try. The answer, it turned out, was a lot. I took snow sports and learned to ski and snowboard from scratch. I did yoga on Monday mornings with my friends. I took a class that brought me to the Amazon in March, camera in hand, spending hours in a canoe on the Rio Negro with people who wanted to learn every bird by sight. I jumped out of a plane, a Category A skydive, where instead of being strapped to an instructor I had one on each side of me, and then at 5,500 feet it was just me piloting a parachute to the ground. In between all of that I went to London for my scholarship program, planned and executed a trip to Toronto with my sister for her 21st birthday, and Columbus to see my brother more times than I can count. I started playing Elden Ring, and got whooped by the difficulty. I bought a camera and figured out what I could actually do with it. I built this portfolio into something I’m genuinely proud of.
Sometimes I wish I had a checklist for the “most worthwhile things to do”. I mean, look back to my second year, I felt like I was handed a map I didn’t know how to read. Man, I wish I even HAD a map now! But choosing to forgo certainty for the chance of something greater, at risk of being too cheesy, made the time finding the things that mattered ever sweeter.
The bittersweet part is real though. I am very used to a rhythm of brutal busy periods followed by stretches of breathing room. What comes next is a constant hum, always a little busy, never quite the same peaks and valleys. That’s a different kind of life, and I’m still getting used to the idea of it. More than that, I did this transitionary period with people I love, and we are about to scatter to different corners of the world. I’m excited for all of us; it doesn’t make it less hard.
But I’m also, genuinely, so ready. Senior year taught me that I don’t need a guranteed why, or a logical reason to try. I just need to want it badly enough to jump from the plane.
Thanks for the five years, Cincinnati :)