Moving always puts me in an excited state of melancholy. My heart jumps in anticipation while at the same time aching with a sense of loss. I feel like this move might end in me leaving Provo, probably not for good, but for quite a while. My life has been absolutely fantastic thus far and I expect nothing less in the future. I'm excited to see what happens but also a little sad that in order to see the future I have to leave behind a past full of wonderful experiences that will no longer be my present.
When I left my last class at BYU it felt slightly anti-climatic. I was kind of expecting to feel some kind of finality or closure. I thought that I would feel different and that it would be in that moment that it would hit me that I was really done. Done with college. That I had finally achieved what I had been working towards since kindergarten. But instead I felt nothing. I felt exactly the same, well I did feel a little 'huh.' I thought, 'huh, I feel the same. And none of these people walking past me know that I have just accomplished what they are in the process of trying to accomplish. Or maybe they are in the same boat as me, I really can't tell. Nothing seems to be different at all.'
This is a poem I wrote after that class. When I read it I can see myself walking east along the south side of the library with the sun shining on me and people walking briskly past me.
And so I left.
There was no fanfare, no parade.
No clapping or shouts of congratulations.
I walked by them and they walked by me,
The sun shining, flowers blooming,
Snow on the mountains slowly melting.
No, there was no grand goodbye,
Just a quiet continuance of life.
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| Tessa McGrew |
