Like everyone who has written a final commencement column before me, I’m finding the task of putting the last four years into words much more difficult than I anticipated. For someone who is always scribbling away in her journal, I thought this final college assignment would be quickly checked off but I’m still staring at “write inside column” penciled into my planner. If I flip the page of my notebook, graduation looms.
Transitions like this are so hard for me. I hate the uncertainty of what comes next. One of the first things I wrote down for this column is that I want to linger in the in-between a little longer. I want to bask in the last weeks of senior year forever. I want to press these quiet days on campus when time seems suspended, while also moving all too quickly, into the pages of a scrapbook. One last run around the lakes. One last hangout in the 7B lounge. One last late-night production shift in the SDH basement. One last twirl around Newfs.
At the beginning of the year, I would have been the first to tell you I was excited to graduate. I felt ready to go and that my time at college was up. But, really that was a lie. As 1975 frontman Matty Healy put it, “You couldn’t be more wrong actually. I’m unbelievably sentimental.”
I’m so unbelievably grateful for the person I have become at Notre Dame and to all of the people who helped me grow. I finally feel like I can truly be myself and I feel thankful to have found people who love me no matter what.
There are more thank yous than I can fit here (word count limits, you know how it is), but I will try my best. To Shannon for being my first friend and letting me watch Euphoria in your quad, to my Mom for letting me cry about physics and getting my heart broken, to Dani for never giving up on our shared NYC dreams, to my family for all your support, to V and Laura for always making me smile, to Mary for changing my life and to everyone at The Observer for being my people.
If you know me you know my favorite movie is “Little Women,” and I always find myself coming back to rewatch it during different eras of my life.
I feel like Jo March now more than ever. I now know what she meant when she said “I can’t believe childhood is over.” In response to that Meg says, “It was going to end one way or another. And what a happy end.”
Most of the time I feel like Joe. I don’t want this chapter to end, I can’t believe I’m an adult now, and I’m scared for what’s next. But, there’s a part of me that knows Meg is right. If it has to come to an end, this is the end I would choose over and over again.
Caroline is graduating from Notre Dame with a degree in environmental science and a minor in journalism. This summer she will be interning on the opinion desk at The Dallas Morning News. Send your book recommendations (yay for leisure reading time) to ccolli23@alumni.nd.edu and follow her on Substack @cabbychronicles.
