I am in a cafe in Chicago, reluctantly writing my last piece for The Observer on my phone. I have tried everything to avoid this moment: turned it in late (sorry, Abby), “forgot” my laptop in South Bend, painted my nails though I knew I would be writing by hand. Kate Casper and I nearly stopped into the Glossier store on our way just to delay the inevitable. Not yet. Five more minutes.
This semester, I have avoided contemplating my graduation to the point of stupidity. I did not try on my white dress until hours before graduation photos. I pretended my last orchestra concert was another Friday-evening interruption of my going-out plans, not possibly the last time I will ever perform after 18 years. I have no idea what I will say to my friends — my constant companions over the last four years — when the moment comes next Monday. I am certain my emotional procrastination will rear its ugly head, but not yet.
The thing I miss most about freshman year, looking back, is the way we used to talk to each other before class. We were so desperate to make friends, so uncomfortable in our new solitude, that ten minutes of mindless chatting before Principles of Microeconomics felt like a life raft. Where are you from? What are you studying? The words meant nothing, usually. Still, when I see Paige from Spanish or anyone from my GGL dialogue, I remember their kindness and their curiosity from those liminal pre-lecture moments.
Upperclassmen don’t talk to each other before class as much. We have our friend groups — solidified in dorm rooms or extracurriculars — and feel little pressure to expand an already burgeoning social circle. This pattern is especially noticeable during senior year. When everything is intensified by the threat of leaving, why bother becoming best friends with the freshman in your English seminar?
I seem to have forgotten this unspoken rule in my final semester. But instead of distracting myself from the uncomfortable truth of my departure, it only means more goodbyes. Not just to my closest, loved-you-since-freshman-year friends, but to Catie from class. To my darling quartet. To each of the bright, optimistic underclassmen’s faces at The Observer. It kills me to leave you all behind.
I may pretend these new connections were inevitable, just part of living at Notre Dame. But I suspect I’ve been trying new things — confiding in new people — to avoid visiting my old haunts for the last time. That doesn’t mean the last time won’t arrive, obviously, but maybe I won’t realize it’s happening until it’s gone. I don’t know the last time my mother picked me up as a child, but it happened. I don’t know the last time I spent hours chatting in Welsh Fam or stayed after a meeting at The Observer office or watched too much “Modern Family” with my roommates, but it will happen. Maybe it already has. Only the hope of “not yet, not now” keeps me afloat.
I have prepared to miss my friends, my classes, the lakes. I can imagine the dull ache of nostalgia — a pain so steady and underwhelming it becomes my new companion. I have prepared to miss you, but not to say goodbye.
A senior in my favorite poetry class last fall, when asked about her weekend, responded so earnestly: “I made a new friend, so I haven’t been able to get anything done.” I think about that moment often, the courage it takes to say something so simple and so true, to admit what each act of kindness from each new friend really means. This is my own attempt at her honesty: I love you all. I love this place even when it feels too small. I miss you already.
The only way to say goodbye is one person at a time, one last time after the other. I see these moments on the horizon, but I choose not to face them. Not yet. Give me five more minutes. In my mind, we are still scared freshmen, talking before class.
Katie Muchnick is a senior from Evansville, Indiana, graduating with majors in English and economics and a minor in journalism. She served as the Managing Editor for The Observer. You can contact her at kmuchnic@nd.edu.
