It doesn’t feel like goodbye

I’m graduating.
I took my last final exam on Tuesday. Ever.
It feels a little strange – thinking of the idea that I won’t have to study anymore, go to classes, write papers, eat at the school dining hall, and get trashed on a regular basis.

Especially when I’m graduating a term before everyone. I just don’t feel complete. No one else is going through the same things I am right now, no one else is ready to say goodbye. Heck, it doesn’t feel like it is goodbye.

Usually at the end of school there is a palpable sense of excitement, regret, sadness at the prospect of graduation – your surroundings, your friends are in sync with what you are expecting and experiencing. But instead I feel like I’m singing 5 seconds off beat to a song, or like I just read the ending of a book that ended too abruptly.

It just feels so strange.

I’m moving out of the dorms by Saturday, probably. And then it’s goodbye Dartmouth (thanks for everything, I’ve learnt a lot in this past 4 years, and I’ve grown up a lot too), and hello world. Hello, standing up for myself. Now, the possibilities are endless, for real. And it is scary… it’s like… one moment you can see a couple of trajectories you could follow, and the next, there are so many you can barely tell them apart. I reckon someone who was counting stars, and suddenly whose vision just turned glaringly bright from all the invisible stars turning v isible – would feel just as disorientated.

Sigh. When I said goodbye to Cheryl today it was so strange. Only when the casually uttered, “see ya” left my lips did it sink into my head that I probably won’t be seeing her for a long long time. As I turned around and began to walk away I really wished that I could have that last moment back – and I dunno, said something more meaningful, or tried harder to hold that moment of goodbye more closely to me. Tell her that she’s a great friend, and that I really do wish her the best. To call if she needs me, to say sorry for pushing back meetups. But the moment was gone. And all I could do, was turn back and say again, “goodbye.” “Take care Cheryl.” And our legs just kept taking us apart.

I guess… now it feels like goodbye. I feel miserable now, and I feel this burning sensation in my eyes. Goodbye Dartmouth, goodbye my friends.

And goodbye no longer feels like it is good enough.