Goodbyes

I’m very late with this post, I know, but in my defense, it’s been a hugely busy week. I finished college, came home, and now have started preparing for a future in the Navy. It’s been a week of goodbyes, and as emotionally exhausting as I find starting new things, goodbyes are even more exhausting, so I’ve just begun to recover enough to write this (getting to see many of you in church on Sunday morning certainly helped with that, so thank you!)

The week was a long series of lasts, starting with our Naval Science final exam and Change of Command for ROTC. We discovered during the course of the exam that a lot of the seniors don’t actually remember what the Oath of Office says, so hopefully we’ll be okay on commissioning, but the Change of Command ceremony went well. I received two awards, and the officers presenting the awards (one of whom is actually a tutor in my dorm at Harvard) stuck around afterwards to munch muffins and talk to the graduating seniors.

Later on Wednesday, I had my last class and then my last FUEL of college. The discussion was good, and it was good to see everyone, but as I walked out of the building it finally began to hit me that I might never see those people again. In addition, I realized Wednesday night that I was leaving Friday morning, not Friday afternoon as I’d somehow assumed, and so only had one day left, and that my one day had to be spent packing up my things, never to reassemble them into the room I’d spent so much time in.

After that, there was no stopping it. I waited until I got back to my room to cry, but it was all quite overwhelming. How in the world did I get on the other side of college this fast? Where did the time go? It felt like one of those times where you’re trying to read, but you’re distracted, and you end up skimming every word on a page and then having no recollection of the chapter you just read. I know that, objectively, I’m going on to better things, and that the most important, universal things are the sort of things one can’t lose. All the same, I found myself in tears about the particular little things that couldn’t be gotten back: my particular room, and my particular route home, and my particular bookshelf – that gave birth to so many memories.

Thursday was all about saying goodbye to people; my day revolved around four meetings with some of the closest friends I’ve had here at Harvard, with lots of conversations about what it means to grieve, and whether we’d have to say goodbye to things and stages in a perfect world (and quite a few pastries, too). As it turns out, I’ll see at least one of my friends again; we’ll be rooming together for a week after graduation. Which means it’s finally time to explain my post-graduation plans:

I’m not actually finished with college yet; I still have an essay and a take-home final due in the next week to finish my class. I’ll be in Texas for three weeks, and then I’ll head back to Harvard to graduate and commission in the Navy. At that point, I don’t know when I’ll be back in Texas; I’ll be in Boston for a couple of weeks finalizing paperwork before heading down to my ship, DDG-80 Roosevelt, in Jacksonville. After that it’s back and forth between the ship and Norfolk for training for about six months, and then I’ll be stationed on the ship permanently for my first tour. That’s all I know for now.

I have to admit, I wasn’t nearly as happy about coming home this time as I usually am. It was hard to say so many goodbyes: I miss Harvard, and I’ll never get to come home to it again. But when I arrived back (already rather depressed), I remembered again that this is the last time I’ll be in Texas in who-knows-how-long as well, so I am glad I came back early. It’s a good thing, I know, both to come back and to graduate. But it still hurts. It is what it is.

So in short, I’ve been exhausted both emotionally and physically for the past few days (I wanted to spend as much time in my room as possible before saying goodbye, which meant staying up late, but I also wanted to work out a few last times in the gym where working out changed my life, so I was also getting up really early). I could barely move on Friday; I slept half of Saturday; and today I still took a long nap. But I have work to get done and plans to make moving forward, and a new life to get excited about. So it’s just about time to wake up.

Photos:

Every time I think "I'm ready to leave this cold, rainy place," Cambridge throws in a gorgeous sunny day to make me regret my decision:

 Finally warm enough to pull out my summer clothes!

 And the flowers are here!

 I'm pretty proud of this one:

 You can just imagine the road wandering off into fairyland.

 First time all year I've worn my whites - headed to Change of Command!

 I almost forgot to mention my last days at kickboxing. My coaches (who, if I haven't said this before, were phenomenal) hugged me and wished me well. I'm going to miss this place as much as pretty much any place in Cambridge, outside of my room and the dorm gym.

 Speaking of the dorm gym, here's my last day of working out in the place where I dropped my body fat percentage by over 10% and learned how to bench press:

 One more beautiful shot of Cambridge Common:

 And the place I'll miss most:

 I don't usually think of myself as a hobbit, but I will miss my tea and books.

 And back to the Lone Star State: