Friday, April 28, 2006

Dunzo

A funny thing happened to me yesterday. I walked out of my last class, at 6 PM. The hallway of the building was completely empty, except for a few ratty newspapers and the general grime of people coming in and out all day long. It was silent, though, and that's what struck me first.

I have to say, I'm glad that the silence stopped me, because it did. I was maybe ten seconds - no, not even - from just walking out of the building just like I had done for the last five years after every class, but the silence made me take another look. I stood there, probably looking like a complete idiot, trying to think of the next time I would be in CAS. And I couldn't come up with anything. Sure, I could stop in whenever I wanted throughout the next few weeks and summer, but it wouldn't be the same. And part of me, no matter how little I really liked the building, didn't want to recognize that. But the silence, in its way, sort of made me.

I stood there for a few minutes and remembered a lot of the times I was in the building, but as soon as I tried to focus on anything significant, I couldn't remember anything. I tried to remember my first class, and I couldn't remember. I couldn't even remember how I felt as a freshman. Everything was just kind of hazy. The only thing I could sort of feel was this sense of time having gone by.

Five years, just like that. To say it went by fast would be obvious, because I think I've - and everyone has - found that life goes by pretty quickly. There's a completeness to it, though, however strange it felt to know that this really was my last class, because unlike last year when I graduated, there is no next year here. That's one thing I realized while standing in that hallway: I'm done. Like, done-done. Dunzo, if you will.

As my favorite TV guy, Kevin Arnold, says, "Change is never easy. You fight to hold on. You fight to let go." The Wonder Years always had it right. It's never easy to give up something that you've really loved.

And that's the other thing I realized, standing there in the silence: I felt good about the five years I've spent here. Say what you will about BU, about college in general, fuck it, even Warren Towers (hey, I'm in a giving mood right now), but when it comes down to it, the experience I have had here, in these five years, is, top to bottom, completely, everything - something I would never wish to change. If you ask me, I'll tell you that I grew up in my five years here. I could try to explain that more, but I think you just have to trust me that it's true.