I entered Duke four years ago with the Class of 2012, never stopping to think that our expiration date was stamped over the very celebration of our arrival. Well, it’s 2012.
I’d like to say I welcome change, but I don’t. There’s the momentary excitement at the prospect of something new and different, and the possibilities that come with it. But ultimately, I tend to like things the way they are. There’s a little bit of laziness in there—sometimes I can’t be bothered to fix something that’s not broken. A tiny bit of ego—surely the way I had been doing things was the best way. And some fear—that things will never be the same.
My habitual sameness extends to every part of my life. I take the same kinds of classes, talk to the same people and order the same thing at favorite restaurants. In high school, Sunday was always dumpling night. The variety in my wardrobe consisted of different colors of polo shirts, and different washes of jeans. I didn’t consider myself 16 until I turned 17.
You can imagine how college, well, changed me. I can describe my freshman year self in some ways—100 pounds, awkward, insecure.
OK, so I haven’t changed so much.
The old and the wise tell me that college is the best time of your life. I say, which part? It seems preposterous to define four transformative years as one experience.
Was it freshman year, taking advantage of independence for the first time? My newfound freedom carried me to Italy, China, Holland and Germany. I got my first B—and my first C—but at least Shooters wasn’t strict enough yet to care that I was 17.
Maybe it was sophomore year. I had a car on campus, and I no longer had to wake up an extra half hour early to account for the C-1 wait. I was disdainful toward the freshmen, more than half of whom were older than me. I threw up in the snow once (or twice) behind a frat house, and I started to explore Durham beyond Mt. Fuji and Torero’s.
My junior year will always be defined by 301 Flowers, and the thin bundle of print you’re holding (or screen you’re reading) now. My fellow editors and I assigned the utmost importance to obscure decisions that no one else noticed or cared about. I lived and died by journalism. I decided I didn’t want to go into journalism. A best friend became a boyfriend, and then an old friend. A lot can happen in a year.
And my senior year—well, it’s not over until it’s over. But it has been a radically unique experience in ways I never could have predicted, as has each of my four years at Duke.
Now, with time slipping away more quickly than I can process it, I’m left to reflect on the somewhat cruel impermanence of college life. To my change-resistant self, it is inexplicably ironic to hand a 17-year-old an environment tailor-made for forging relationships and shared experiences, only to kick her out four years later, maybe not wiser but a little less vulnerable.
But when I think a little harder, slipping past the nostalgia, I find that the change hasn’t been so bad. I’ve never longed for the days of accepting whatever cheap vodka I could get a senior to buy for me. I don’t miss hearing the birds chirp while trudging across an empty quad at 4 a.m. after putting the paper to bed—knowing that I’ll do it again tomorrow, and the next day. And as wistfully as I stare up at my old dorm windows, I wouldn’t trade my big apartment for a shared 200-square foot box.
Life moves quickly, in retrospect. But my routine has been ripped up and rewritten so many times, I’ve come to dismiss any semblance of consistency or predictability. Change has become habitual. And when you put it like that, I’m OK with it.
Of course, some things don’t change. My freshman year roommate and I still call the same place home, although we have upgraded from Hotel Bell Tower to a suite at the Belmont. I still can’t cook, but I sure can eat. I am no less incapable of making decisions as I was four years ago, but at least now I know to pawn those off on someone else.
Some weekends I go home to my parents in Chapel Hill for a night, or even just a dinner, and it feels like I never left. My mother watches trashy TV with me, and my father explains concepts from my economics classes that I don’t understand. My dog whines for our table scraps. Those nights, I am 16 again.
I appreciate more than ever those increasingly rare opportunities to bask in my parents’ limitless love and hide from my impending graduation. I recognize that despite the tumult of college, the next change will be the biggest, scariest and most exciting yet.
Toni Wei is a Trinity senior. She is a senior editor and former managing editor of The Chronicle. She knows you hate it when she corrects your grammar, but it’s for your own good.
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