A Closing Chapter

The metaphorical “closing of a chapter” within a person’s life is always a precarious time, and my senior year at LMU has proven no different. My last year at LMU gave witness to countless breakups and breakdowns amongst friends; couples that once swore they would never leave each other are now realizing that their future does not hold a place for their other half and the people that wore perfectly tailored façades of having it all figured out drunkenly admitted on shadowed corners in Santa Monica that they have no idea what their future holds for them. 

Despite these moments of vulnerability and uncertainty, senior year, like all endings, has sparked beautiful moments of appreciation within both my peers and myself. The drive past Uhall to upper campus has no longer been a race against time in which I curse slow drivers and roll my eyes at P-Safe officers that remind me to stop at the stop signs. Instead, I’ve been touched by the beauty of the campus that I will soon be leaving and that will no longer be my home. The way the sun shines through the foliage as I drive under the bridge; the tranquility that I feel while looking at Sacred Heart Chapel from St. Robs as the sun sets. This appreciation has also found its way into my classes; the corny jokes told by professors no longer elicit a blank face, but instead a smile because of the respect I’ve garnered for them and the unbelievable talent of my peers has grabbed hold of me as I’ve scanned the pages of The Criterion and perused The Truth About the Fact’s blog. These are all forces that I have been surrounded by since freshman year, but that I am only now starting to fully appreciate because of my increasing knowledge of my dwindling time left at this school.

During my senior year of high school, I remember feeling excited about leaving. My friends and I laughed our way through high school graduation, quietly chuckling at the teachers that we felt didn’t care about us and that we had grown to dislike  and rolling our eyes at the peers that had started endless amounts of drama. My experience at LMU hasn’t been perfect, there have been dark moments, but my feelings about leaving this school couldn’t be further from my feelings about exiting high school. I have grown to love the people and places that comprise the LMU community and my senior year has presented me with the opportunity to reflect on both my time spent here and the growth and opportunities that I have experienced. I do not feel the excitement that I felt as a high school senior, anxious to move onto bigger and better things. Instead, I am grasping on to the short amount of time I have left here, determined to collect every memory that I have made at this beautiful university before I drive out past its exit as a student for the last time.

Molly