(no subject)
When I was rearranging my room today I found this note my RA from freshman year gave us the last day before we moved out....I really liked it...she's a very good writer, being an English major and all...
"When you were five, life was measured in holidays. You waited and yearned for the days to countdown towards Christmas festivities, Easter egg hunts, and Fourth of July barbeques. In high school, the life scale was changed to what were deemed "Major Social Events" beginning with first days of school, Homecoming, basketball season, Prom, and finally, graduation. Now in college, I've found that what we measure our time by is, simply, boxes. Boxes. Both empty and full, they define specific moments in time, beginnings and endings, comings and goings. They arrive full of hope and expectations, and leave overflowing with memories and taped down with a few tears. But either way, these boxes are never packed by the same person. We are different people packing the boxes that make that difference, the intervals in the middle of the endless packing that define what it really means to be a college student.
At arrival the first year away at school, these boxes are full of high school yearbooks and picture frames filled with images of prom, notes and cards that were given to you at graduation, your favorite stuffed animal that was a gift from your best friend, the gifts that were given with love from your friends, your family, your teachers the people your world has been centered around thus far. What these boxes bring with them that cannot hold is your fears, expectations and hopes. They cannot carry your fears of living with someone for the first time, getting lost on campus, not making friends, or failing classes. /they are not able to contain your hopes to meet your best friend, to win the intermural championship, to be cast in the campus play, to join your favorite sorority, to make the Dean's List, or to be the person you always wanted to be. These boxes cannot hold your expectations for the year; the balance your logic takes between your hopes and your fears. They do not enclose the person you are at that moment; the person who has been molded and shaped by your family, friends and teachers up to that point; the person who has outgrown their home and is coaxed outside their comfort zone to new challenges. The boxes instead hold the aids for the journey you are about to embark upon.
The boxes then find their way to your closet, to sit and wait patiently for an older and, hopefully, wiser version of you to fill them up once more. And, little by little, they are filled. This time they contain the free T-shirts you screamed to win during football season, the ticket stubs from all the campus plays, movies, and musicals you went to, the endless syllabi from the even more endless classes, the old bus pass that you had hoped would improve your chances to make it to class on time, the Mardi Gras beads and Hawaiian leis from parties long past and forgotten, the out-of-date take-outcoupons, the stuffed animal your best college friend bought you for your birthday, and the picture frames that one-by-one exchanged the images of high school milestones for those of welcome week, tailgating, toga parties, and spring break. While these keepsakes are irreplaceable, it is that which the boxes cannot hold that makes you the person you've become and thus makes the packing so difficult. They are not able to contain the innumerable trips to Meijer, the never-ending philosophical talks with your best friend that last most of the night, the inablility to stay awake in class because of all the fun you had last night, the ice cream runs at 3 am, the pick-up ultimate frisbee game the night before your final, the camping out in the freezing, bitter cold for the best seats at the football game you knew you were going to lose, the times you and your friends randomly belted out the fight song at the tops of your lungs, or the emotions that coursed through your veins when you realized that not only did your fears not come true, but your expectations were exceeded and you could not have ever hoped for anything more. Finally, the boxes cannot hold the realization of how much you grew in the past eight months and in so many ways, or the feeling that struck you when you realized you had to "graduate" again, and leave this once-unfamiliar place to go back to someplace that now seems so foreign.
That is it. It is the things that cannot be put into boxes that have molded you into who you are now. It is the time in between the boxes that was most crazy and most precious. It is boxes, simple folds of cardboard, that now define how much time is measured in your life. They represent the passage of time, the trinkets and memories, the necessary physical items and the priceless emotional ones. Each spring I loathe the boxes and each fall I celebrate them again. But overall, I yearn for more boxes to fill with more meaning, memories, life, and love."
"When you were five, life was measured in holidays. You waited and yearned for the days to countdown towards Christmas festivities, Easter egg hunts, and Fourth of July barbeques. In high school, the life scale was changed to what were deemed "Major Social Events" beginning with first days of school, Homecoming, basketball season, Prom, and finally, graduation. Now in college, I've found that what we measure our time by is, simply, boxes. Boxes. Both empty and full, they define specific moments in time, beginnings and endings, comings and goings. They arrive full of hope and expectations, and leave overflowing with memories and taped down with a few tears. But either way, these boxes are never packed by the same person. We are different people packing the boxes that make that difference, the intervals in the middle of the endless packing that define what it really means to be a college student.
At arrival the first year away at school, these boxes are full of high school yearbooks and picture frames filled with images of prom, notes and cards that were given to you at graduation, your favorite stuffed animal that was a gift from your best friend, the gifts that were given with love from your friends, your family, your teachers the people your world has been centered around thus far. What these boxes bring with them that cannot hold is your fears, expectations and hopes. They cannot carry your fears of living with someone for the first time, getting lost on campus, not making friends, or failing classes. /they are not able to contain your hopes to meet your best friend, to win the intermural championship, to be cast in the campus play, to join your favorite sorority, to make the Dean's List, or to be the person you always wanted to be. These boxes cannot hold your expectations for the year; the balance your logic takes between your hopes and your fears. They do not enclose the person you are at that moment; the person who has been molded and shaped by your family, friends and teachers up to that point; the person who has outgrown their home and is coaxed outside their comfort zone to new challenges. The boxes instead hold the aids for the journey you are about to embark upon.
The boxes then find their way to your closet, to sit and wait patiently for an older and, hopefully, wiser version of you to fill them up once more. And, little by little, they are filled. This time they contain the free T-shirts you screamed to win during football season, the ticket stubs from all the campus plays, movies, and musicals you went to, the endless syllabi from the even more endless classes, the old bus pass that you had hoped would improve your chances to make it to class on time, the Mardi Gras beads and Hawaiian leis from parties long past and forgotten, the out-of-date take-outcoupons, the stuffed animal your best college friend bought you for your birthday, and the picture frames that one-by-one exchanged the images of high school milestones for those of welcome week, tailgating, toga parties, and spring break. While these keepsakes are irreplaceable, it is that which the boxes cannot hold that makes you the person you've become and thus makes the packing so difficult. They are not able to contain the innumerable trips to Meijer, the never-ending philosophical talks with your best friend that last most of the night, the inablility to stay awake in class because of all the fun you had last night, the ice cream runs at 3 am, the pick-up ultimate frisbee game the night before your final, the camping out in the freezing, bitter cold for the best seats at the football game you knew you were going to lose, the times you and your friends randomly belted out the fight song at the tops of your lungs, or the emotions that coursed through your veins when you realized that not only did your fears not come true, but your expectations were exceeded and you could not have ever hoped for anything more. Finally, the boxes cannot hold the realization of how much you grew in the past eight months and in so many ways, or the feeling that struck you when you realized you had to "graduate" again, and leave this once-unfamiliar place to go back to someplace that now seems so foreign.
That is it. It is the things that cannot be put into boxes that have molded you into who you are now. It is the time in between the boxes that was most crazy and most precious. It is boxes, simple folds of cardboard, that now define how much time is measured in your life. They represent the passage of time, the trinkets and memories, the necessary physical items and the priceless emotional ones. Each spring I loathe the boxes and each fall I celebrate them again. But overall, I yearn for more boxes to fill with more meaning, memories, life, and love."