So many people ask me what being a senior feels like. They ask if I am going to miss everything, and they ask me what it feels like to do something for the last time. They ask what it feels like to see the ending. They ask what it feels like to know that it was my last registration, my last formal, my last...well...everything.
But they missed something.
Senior year is not about the last things.
Senior year is about seeing someone's first time...
Someone's beginning.
Senior is about knowing what someone's first time will mean down the road. It is being thankful for everything and celebrating everyone else's opportunity to experience the same things you did. You know who you become friends with after standing in lines, going to dances, and finding a new church. You know just how many amazing things are going to happen in their future.
So this is my letter to someone I haven't met, but I think they'd like to see this if they knew.
And even though it isn't exactly right...I think my senior friends would share the sentiments.
Dear Girl Who Sits in my Gazebo Now,
You don't know me, but I sat where you are sitting now. Sometimes at night, I go back, just so I can remember what I felt like three and a half years ago. I go back to the warm summer nights with the stars twinkling, when I had my first big "Belmont Memory." From the look in your eyes as you sing your songs in the rain, I can tell that you are doing the same thing as me.
Oh if you knew just how much was to come!
You are going to fall in love... You are going to love Nashville. You are going to love Belmont. You are going to love learning something, whether that takes place in your classes or not. There are going to be beautiful stars twinkling in your eyes as you find something special in your life week after week. And as you come back to this gazebo, you are going to find yourself wrapped up in the nostalgia of the happy days that you shared with the beautiful people you met here.
You are going to have your heart broken... You are going to meet that boy that makes your world stop, and he's going to fall in love with everyone but you. You are going to realize your future is not what you thought it would be. You are going to lose friends over nothing. And as you come back to this gazebo, you are going to find yourself wrapped up in its shelter as you cry for hours.
You are going to find yourself again... You are going to realize what you really want in life. You are going to make a best friend or two that actually loves you. You are going to find something that makes you smile, and no one can take that away from you. And as you come back to this gazebo, you are going to find yourself wrapped up in the mixed emotions that came from all of the memories you created here.
You are going to fall in love again... You are going to find love in all of the people who helped you find yourself again. You are going to laugh for hours over nothing with those same people, and you are going to love the way your stomach hurts the next day. You are going to love the freshmen that panic over registration, the sophomores that ask you why they still have to check boys in, the juniors that are perpetually late because they forgot that commuting takes longer than expected in Nashville, and the seniors who cry over becoming adults.
You love them because they are just like you.
And as you come back to this gazebo, you are going to find yourself wrapped up in the nostalgia, the shelter, the mixed emotion, and the joy of realizing just how much you have grown up in four years...
and the irony of how much further you need to go.
You are going to give it back... I am doing this to you now. There are so many positions and places that I have called home. But I am graduating in May, and someone needs to keep this campus running. Someone needs to help others, and someone needs to sit here and love like I did. I see you experiencing things like I had, and I see the sparkle in your eyes. I remember it all. I love you for being the new me.
As a senior, I have the opportunity to give someone else a chance to have the same happy memories.
As a senior, I have the opportunity to place trust in someone else.
As a senior, I have the opportunity to see the sparkle and the wonder and the awe that only fresh eyes and hearts may see.
Best of luck with these next three and a half years. You have absolutely no clue what lies around the bend, but as a senior, I can tell you that it is beautiful.
Love,
The Girl Who Sat Here Before
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