It isn't really a bad emotion, but it does make me feel a little inconsequential. Although President Obama would surely disagree, the world doesn't need any one person to function. It would absolutely be slightly different if any of us were taken away. Not everyone can be George Bailey, and while I feel like I can bring some solid stuff to the table every once in a while there isn't really a time when people say, "Wow I really wish we had a wannabe writer slash fizzled-out athlete slash unsure-of-how-he'll-get-where-he-wants-to-be-in-ten-years single dude with terrible hair right now. That's exactly what we need."
Having recently graduated from the University of Notre Dame, I know that this feeling will come back every time that I go back to campus, which I will surely do probably hundreds of times for football games, to see my brother, to see my children when they attend (oh they will), etc, etc, and on and on forever and ever. I'll think of all of the location-specific memories that will spring up on almost every square inch of that campus, from the quad to the bookstore courts to the stadium to the grotto to the lakes to the library. It's not like they are things that will really go away either. Sure, they'll obviously blur and the inconsequential details will go away, but the meaning of the moments will stay. The nights spent on our balcony or on South Quad, the long walks back from the library at 4:00 am during midterms week, the times I've laughed and cried and smiled at the grotto, I can tell you when and why each place on that campus means something to me, but now when I come back, there will be someone else in those places, probably doing those things, and I wonder how it will make me feel.
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| The best backyard in the world |
But before this turns into a look-at-me pity plea (which I do love to do), I'd like to describe just how not-sad I've been in the past few weeks and months.
I had been mentally preparing myself to be very sad before, during, and after senior week and graduation, and while there have been some moments, like the first day of spring and the hours after my last test, that I have gotten nostalgic, for the most part I have been able to be very even keel. I know that I'm not representative of everybody in that regard, and I know that there will be more moments like the ones listed before, but even though I know that I'm done at Notre Dame, I also know that Notre Dame isn't over.
This seems silly and contradictory, I know, but let me explain. The last person that I went to see at Notre Dame was one of my favorite priests (also: favorite people). The first thing that he asked was explicitly, "Are you sad?" I told him what I just told you, and he didn't seem surprised at all. He went on to talk about my friends, and how good of people they are, and how he was sure that we would keep track of each other and, in doing so, take care of each other. He talked about all the ways that Notre Dame had fostered (and stressed the importance of) community, and how I was (and presumably we were) more prepared for success than I could imagine. That advice (and whenever you get advice it really should come from either your family or a priest, right???), combined with a three hour drive home, got me thinking, and I think that I finally understood why I haven't been all that sad.
First of all, like Father said, I have developed a friend group of incredible people. At freshman orientation they tell you that you're going to make lifelong friends in college. Friends who will be in your weddings, friends who you'll talk to every week, friends who...blahblahblah, and everybody kind of believes it by default because you'll be with them for four years. It'd be impossible to not make a couple of good friends during those four years, but everybody also believes that statement is a little exaggerated. Some of the closest people in my life are from home. People who I've known for over a decade. Some who I've known practically since my first conscious memories. How could these people come even close to that in four years?
To be honest, I don't completely know when it happened, but at some point during the lunches and dinners and studying and slacking when we should have been studying and praying and playing and stress and fights and wins and losses and drinks you realize that you've stumbled across a group of people that genuinely love you, and that will do just about anything for you. I consider people from Massachusetts and Missouri and New York and Virginia and Wyoming and California and Nebraska and Texas and Kansas and Florida and Ohio and Michigan and Pennsylvania who are going to write novels and save people's lives and do service work and help children and launch rockets and build airplanes and design buildings and make combined billions in investments and play professional sports to be among my closest friends, which is amazing, but on top of that they're also among the very most kind, caring, humble people I know and they'd all be willing to fight for me and vice versa. That's pretty cool.
I also thought about the education I've received. I've learned at the top Catholic institution in the world. Only 2000 people every year get a chance to say that. It's not something to be undervalued. I've received a broad education as well, as has everyone at Notre Dame, due to their requirements of theology and science and math and literature. College is a time for growing up, but it's also a time for expansion, for growing up in every area, and I've had an opportunity to do that, even if I didn't realize it exactly as it happened.
The point of education is not to receive a degree or a certification or whatever symbol of accomplishment is presented. The point of education is empowerment. Empowerment to do a job, yes, but also to do good things, to take care of people, to continue to learn, and to reflect all of the things that have been projected on me, explicitly and implicitly, over the past four years. So while it may be clear that the world will roll on without me, and some 18 year-old, yet-to-be-humbled, ignorant kid will take my place at Notre Dame in the fall, and will walk on the quad that used to partially belong to me and pray in the grotto that used to be the nearest sanctuary for me, that doesn't mean that Notre Dame is over for me. Notre Dame transcends its campus, as do all colleges. Notre Dame is in the way that I've learned is the right way to treat people. Notre Dame is in the brothers I've gained. Notre Dame is in the success I've had.
I had it backwards. For the past four years I wasn't a part of Notre Dame that could be replaced in any way but the physical sense. For the past four years I've allowed Notre Dame to become who I am. So graduating isn't defined by me leaving, but rather by me going forth with what I've been given and showing the world exactly how special all of it is.
"For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a strong mind."
- 2 Timothy 1:7
