“Walking in the Wind”

“Ah ooh, we had some good times, didn't we?
Ah ooh, we wore our hearts out on our sleeve
Aw ooh, goodbyes are bittersweet
But it's not the end
I'll see your face again

You will find me
And you will find me
In places that we've never been
For reasons we don't understand
Walking in the wind”

--One Direction, “Walking in the Wind”

 

4-28-2019. The SAGE barbecue is just one of many, many memories that I'll carry with me. We laughed, we drank, we relaxed, we got that iconic bonfire video! 

I wrote most of this post on February 21^st. I’ve tweaked it some before I posted it, but I can’t help thinking about the headspace I was in when I started this post—heck, when I started this whole blog. I had no way of knowing that this is how the semester would end, that going out for Lexi’s birthday would be the last time we all went out to Aggieville together or that the flowers I left on my desk over Spring Break would never make it back to my apartment. Two months ago I never even considered that we wouldn’t have graduation to look forward to in a bittersweet way.

Honestly, the more I think about graduation—and endings in general—the more obsessed I get with this song in a masochistic way. Every time it comes on, I kind of feel like I've been kicked in the stomach--in the best possible way, I guess. I imagine my life like a movie and this is the song that plays as we all drive away with the sun shining and our cars packed full of our belongings on our way to the next adventure. It just perfectly encapsulates this phenomenon I've felt since I was in high school; it's bittersweet and joyful and nostalgic and exciting and hopeful and sad all at the same time, and that's how graduation makes me feel.

Example: shortly after I graduated (shout out to the class of 2014!), I fell out of touch with one of my best friends since 1st grade. I realize now that it was a long time coming. Even my mom says that she's the friend she's glad I'm not friends with anymore. It wasn't a great relationship. But I still "see" her in the most random places--in the movies she liked, the music she'd play in her car when we'd go out, in the old birthday presents she gave me and I've kept. And it's not a bad thing. Even though the friendship fizzled (I think of it as a friendship based on proximity rather than compatibility), those things bring back the good memories, and, you know me: I love holding on to the good memories.

Spring Break 2020. Colorado to California to Connecticut to Missouri to Alabama and Florida and Maine and every state in between, you guys will be with me wherever the wind takes me.

So when I heard "Walking in the Wind" it was like a sign. Because you guys have had a bigger impact on me in 2 years than some people that I've known for 10. There are books and movies and songs and words and places I'll never be able to look at again without thinking about you: Ariana Grande and One Direction and Bebe Rexha and 18th century British Literature and trauma studies and the word "bag" and any meme ever and horror movies and a really cool bug and sunflowers or anything stereotypically Kansas without thinking about you. (That's, in order, Dustin, Rebecca, V, Cailey, Mikayla, Noelle, Lexi, Nick & Gina, Jacque, and Molly, by the way--and so many other things.) And, maybe most iconically, I will always and forevermore associate "To His Coy Mistress" with us and 801. And, Lord, “Goblin Market,” too. I swear, I can analyze that poem in a dozen different ways now.

I imagine that, by this point in my life, at the ripe old age of 24, almost everything reminds me of something or someone...and I like that. It means I've lived a meaningful life and made connections and loved people and gotten to know them and shared experiences with them. And I can only hope that this feeling goes both ways. I hope you think of me every time you see a cat or whenever the Jonas Brothers come on the radio (because they're definitely going to be around in 10+ years to randomly remind you of me) or when some new shocking tweet from JKR comes out.

But I also hope, like the song says, that we'll see each other in places we've never been, because—I don't know—that seems to suggest that there's an essence of people that we carry with us, and maybe one day I'll see a sunset that feels particularly "Mikayla-ish," whatever that might look like. I like to think one night I'll look at stars and think of you or hear a stranger's laugh and do a double-take. And I can't wait to be surprised by it when it does come, because I have so many good memories with you guys, and there will never be a bad time to be reminded of what all we've accomplished here.

9-8-2019. There's something about a good Midwestern field. It's so geographically open that it feels emotionally open--open to new possibilities and adventures, open to new ideas; it feels like there's space for you in a field like this, like you're allowed to take up space because there's plenty of it. I hope you bottle that feeling in your heart and take it with you wherever you go next. You are always allowed to take up space.

Gah, this song is so good! Sometimes I play whatever song the post is titled after while I'm writing because it sets the mood for the post, and this one just fills me with so much love and nostalgia and hope! In the first verse is the line "The fact that we can sit right here and say goodbye means we've already won," and it immediately reminds me of the Winnie the Pooh quote "How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard." (Rebecca, if/when you meet Harry Styles, please don't tell him that. I'm sure that's not what he was going for when he wrote this song.) I'm also obsessed with this quote from Cassandra Clare's Clockwork Princess (I promise there's a point in all these extra quotes!): "Every meeting led to a parting, and so it would as long as life was mortal. In every meeting, there was some of the sorrow of parting, but in every parting, there was some of the joy of meeting as well." I think the point that all of these quotes are making is that goodbyes suck, but getting to share experiences and make memories with someone is a special kind of joy that we can cherish for years after the goodbye.

I feel that. I'll take the tears and the heartbreak of goodbye because I know I'll get to keep the laughter and smiles and random acts of kindness for the rest of my life. We really did win when we got each other. And, while I’m not ready to say goodbye to you all (truth be told, I could spend a lifetime with you and not be ready for that), I’m ready for this to be over. I’m ready for quarantine to end and for us to get out into the world and do something. I’m ready to watch you all succeed instead of twiddling your thumbs inside. You have so, so much to give to the world, and I’m ready to tweet about your accomplishments and share articles about you on Facebook and be your biggest fan, and I know that can’t happen the way things are right now. So, even though I wish we could freeze time in this moment, I’ll suffer through the “goodbye” if it means we can get to the “good” sooner.

And, while I wish more than anything that we could have a graduation ceremony and properly say goodbye and hug and cry, maybe having no formal goodbyes is poetic in a sense, because I know it’s not the end. We'll find each other again, walking in the wind.

Love ∞,

Me 

PS: We are so close to ALL being done with our defenses! So many people have passed since I last gave a shout out a month ago! Nick passed on April 15th; Lexi passed today, and  Mikayla defends this week! We're there, guys! Despite everything, we did it! And I'm so proud of all of us that words like "proud" don't seem to do it justice. You're the most remarkable people I know! I love you so much!