My room is scattered with boxes, garbage bags and piles and piles of books. In four semesters and seventeen classes, I've amassed quite a library—Norton Anthologies, Defoe, Eliot, Swift—I've even read a good portion of it.

And there are pictures and letters, term papers and newspaper clippings. And dozens of little trinkets, reminders of events, trips, places. People. It's enough to more than fill my shelves, my drawers and under my bed. Soon it will all fill the back of my mother's minivan, en route to Massachusetts.

It's all going to quickly—these years are halfway done and I'm not ready for that. And though I know I've grown and changed a hundred thousand times since I arrived on campus August 31, 2000—I can't be only a year and nine months older—it's all gone by in a heart beat. I'm not ready to blink to graduation.

Halfway isn't all the way gone, but with every moment that passes (please bear with me, I'm far too sentimental now) something is gone that isn't coming back. This year—though full of frustrations and awful, awful events—was wonderful. I'm never going to live with these three girls again in this room. I will never look out my window to the glittering lights of South Philadelphia with quite the same view ever again. And maybe that's not so bad; after a while, the view became indelibly linked with a sort of loneliness I developed over the course of the first semester. And though for the past week, I'd been questioning why I tried to stretch this year out a little bit longer when really it had already slipped through my fingers, I am again not sure if I'm ready to let it go just yet.

Finals have been finished for me for well over a week. Grades were posted days ago. Nancy already left, over a week ago. Kristin left a week ago, coming back on and off until she departed for good Wednesday morning. Michelle is still here, but it's just the two of us and she works all day. I've had a lot of time to think. I'm not a sophomore anymore.

Last night, we watched old episodes of Cheers and bits of the Top 100 One-Hit-Wonders on VH1. I will miss his couch. I could tell by the empty bedroom that his roommate had left earlier that day, but his room was as it always was. I will miss that room, even the Yankees posters looming over me, making me feel entirely dirty and tinged with evil.

After a while, he got quiet and said he thought he needed to go for a long walk. I said I understood; I have done more walking and thinking this week than I have in a very long time. He asked what it was I had to think about and I found myself rushing through a Cliff-notes version of all that troubles me in this world, but I know I'm never really good at putting my finger on it (let alone words to match) and in a way, I didn't want those things to mingle with this because by in large, it had been free of those sorts of melodramas. Light, fluffy and warm—I think what I seek in pancakes goes for relationships as well.

It was two-thirty in the morning. I let him go, even though I didn't want to. I know I'm lucky; I get to come back in seven months after a stint in London. He actually has to leave for good.

It was unspoken from the beginning that this was the end. He walked me back upstairs to my room, apologized for needing to be alone, which I said I understood. We hugged goodbye a little after three. I scribbled out a note that I tucked into his birthday present (two months overdue almost) and descended fifteen floors to drop it off at his door at four in the morning. I don't think he was home yet.

I know this is what's fair. I know this is how we're supposed to go—a bit of sadness, but promises of writing occasionally (eventually). I wonder if I run into him at Banquet next year if it will be awkward, or just nice to see him. But that's not for another eight months, and I haven't any clue who I'll be by then.

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Replies: 1

Posted by ryan @ 05/20/2002 02:14 AM EST