A couple weeks ago, I pressed my nose up against the small square of Plexiglas next to my seat as JetBlue Flight 606 hovered over Portland.
I've made the same descent countless times during my time at Bowdoin, but I still can't help feeling a little awe-inspired by the scattered lakes and bewildering forests of Maine's landscape. Born and raised in the Midwest, New England still has an exotic draw for me; the curious charm of lobster boats, in fact, eliminated any need I ever felt to study overseas. Land's End would suffice.
As the plane inched closer and closer to its landing, though, I experienced the first of what I think will be many this year: a "this is my last [fill in typical college activity here]" moment.
"This is the last time I'll ever arrive at Bowdoin for a new school year," I thought, wrapping my headphone cords around my iPod and tossing it into the L.L. Bean tote bag I bought the first weekend of my freshman year.
When I got to campus, dragging heavy bags of clothes to my room, I recalled the sheer terror of arriving freshman year and introducing myself to my roommate, whom, from legends I had heard, could become either the bane of my existence or my best friend. I remembered greeting my blockmates sophomore year in our Chamberlain doubles, all of us reassured by the presence of familiar faces. And the strange sense of being a junior, suddenly on the downhill slope, feeling the absence of friends both graduated and abroad.
And here I was, setting up a dorm room for perhaps the last time in my life. Tacking to crumbling walls posters and postcards that I'll probably have to throw away at the end of the year. Do real, live adults duct tape the covers of Vogue magazines to their walls? Since, thus far, it seems like my only job title after graduating will be "Impoverished Person," maybe I'll hang on to them.
This eerie sense of finality has followed me around uncomfortably closely for the past couple of weeks. It's made me want to cling to and savor each "Last," want to collect souvenirs from each closure. I battled with the urge to tuck into my bag a claw from my last Lobster Bake, to make copies of my last NCAA athletic clearance forms, embrace Jeff Ward after his opening meeting with student athletes, and to remind my senior comrades this past Monday that there were only 30 or so Mondays left at college.
I'm also finding myself slipping into the strange role of "seniorhood." I've made the first steps toward looking for a job, writing e-mails describing my interest in position X, attending meetings intended to light a fire under students (like myself) contented to, indefinitely, remain just that. Going to my first evening English seminar, relishing in one of my last opportunities to study closely, under the guidance of a professional, a great book. I momentarily stepped out of body when, this past Tuesday, a friend asked if I was going to Joshua's that night. And though the delightful absurdity of Tuesday night drinking baffled me, I realized that what had always seemed to me one of the Bowdoin social scene's privileged holy grails was suddenly available.
But to attach profound significance to each passing moment of my senior year would be to let it pass by entirely, without any real significance. So for the next few months, I'll do my best to ignore the approach of May 23, when I'll say my final farewells to Bowdoin. Barring, of course, the unlikely but certainly not impossible occurrence of a serious academic mishap or social indiscretion...
I promise, in fact, to eliminate the Cheez-Whiz factor from future columns this year, approaching the campus's hard news and pertinent concerns?lost ID cards, gym anxiety, etc.?with only the journalistic balance and gravity that have become my trademarks.
For though I'm slightly crushed whenever I think that the columns I write this year might be my last, I want to have as much fun with them as I have in the past. And just as I aim to take on my senior year activities without the intense nostalgia that blurs actual, unadulterated experience, so I hope to treat "A Sojourn" with unattached enjoyment. Just like the red claw at the bottom of my bag.