“I’m a senior.”
It’s basically your free pass for yourself, a kind of justification.
Don’t want to do work?
Don’t care about the paper you have to write for your last GenEd?
Long nights because your comp is due in a week?
Having a public emotional breakdown at the thought of “the G word”?
Doesn’t matter. You’re a senior.
But saying it to someone else on this campus will always garner a look of complete understanding. Perhaps even a twinge of sympathy.
Because here, we know what it means.
And it means a lot of things.
It means that we have had four years to relish in the quiet majesty that is LeMans Hall.
It means that, on the flip side, we lose our voices to the sometimes not so silent pride of your girls.
It means that we’ve scared our fair share of prospective students with our overexcitement about our home.
It means that our caps and gowns are the last thing we ever want to pick up from the bookstore.
It means that four years of our lives and love have poured into this place with no signs of stopping; we have rings to prove it.
It means that so many girls have fallen in love with this place that leaving simply because “the time as come” registers as devastating.
It means that everyone knows that senior week is just a week of laughter, drinking, and loud music in order to drown out the inevitable.
It means that we’ve had four years to explore this beautiful campus and find not only our favorite places to study and hang out, but also places where we have found ourselves.
But what most don’t know until they get there, is that “I’m a senior” also brings out a lot of twisted emotions we sometimes don’t know how to handle. So we go back to our places on campus and we think.
My place is LeMans Circle.
When I run my hands through the grass in the circle, it reminds me of a friend who asks me to comb her hair after she gets out of the shower.
It reminds me of countless times sitting on a plane, untangling my headphones so I could listen to WoCho and Bella to calm my travel anxiety.
It reminds me of the feelings I have to untangle about our inevitable graduation.
When I walk around on the curbs of LeMans circle, it reminds me of all of the hours I’ve spent in the very same spot. Either with friends, or with my thoughts.
It reminds me of the time I called a friend because I couldn’t remember a basic rule of a language I was supposed to know, and she didn’t scold me for it.
It reminds me of how many pictures I’ve taken of the Belltower just because I find it so magnificent.
When I lay down in LeMans circle, staring up at the quiet majesty of the Belltower, I feel small. I feel safe. I feel cradled by the two wings of the building, and as far as my eyes can tell, I’m surrounded.
But I know when that “G word” day comes, I will walk out of the front doors, and the wings that once held me will open up and show us all off, caps and gowns.
But I also know that when I leave this place, I will leave a piece of it with me.
It will always be my home.
So to the girl who called the RA on-call because she saw me sitting in LeMans Circle at 11 o’clock at night:
I’m okay.
I’m just a senior.
Photos provided by the author
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