All Good Things

The Window

“Was the ceiling really this low? How long has it been since I’ve been down here?”

It was strange that those were my first thoughts as I walked into my grandparent’s basement, but they were. Even walking down the stairs, looking into the space that is now used as an office, but was once a playroom for my siblings and I, I was stunned by how long it had been.

Though the ceiling may seem shorter, the pleasant aroma in the air was the same as it had been when I was a child, and every breath brought back memories. For the most part, it wasn’t specific memories, but a general sense of comfort and realization that this was a place I knew well.

I had to laugh when I walked into the room and saw the window, covered by a thick curtain. It was the fire escape window, and when I was younger, my grandfather would always make sure we were “big enough and strong enough” to open it, in case there was a fire.

But now, as a college student, he trusted me to be able to open a window, or find another way to escape.

It gave me pause for a brief moment, and I walked to the curtain to take a look at the window.

I remember being humored, but annoyed, by it when I was younger. “Of course we can open a window. I’m eight years old.” It was one of the traditions that seemed unnecessary, but we did it anyway.

But now, looking at the window again, I realized I missed it. Not that I wanted to experience it again – I’m happy I’m big enough and strong enough to open a window – but I didn’t have a distinct memory of it ending. At some point, my grandfather trusted us enough, and it was no longer something he needed to check. The tradition ended, without me realizing. Yet, the realization of my growth left me with a nostalgic pain in my heart.

The Departure

I left Liberty University for the last time this week. While still a student, and while I still have a semester to go, the residential portion of my academic life is completed.

My room was packed into the trunk and backseat of good old Vern, my trusted chariot. Overall, I was impressed with how little space it took.

I pulled the quad door tightly shut – probably the only time it’s been properly shut in the past month or so – and walked down through the breezeway, leaving East 151 for the last time. Bro Row has been my home away from home for the past three years, and I knew I would miss it.

A few hours later, my room key and parking pass turned in, I hugged my girlfriend goodbye and got into my car. As I drove, I waved briefly, then turned to face the road. As I rounded the traffic circle onto 460, The Last of the Real Ones by Fall Out Boy shaking my speakers, I took a deep breath.

People ask me if I feel sad, leaving Liberty.

The truth of the matter? No. I’m not sad. I feel determined.

Yes, I hate that I have to leave the community that has surrounded me and insulated me throughout these past years. But the time has run out on the clock, and it’s time for me to start running again.

I’m not going to deny the sadness that other people are feeling – I know it’s normal and healthy for them to experience it. But, at the same time, I’m not going to ask myself (or anyone else) to process what’s happening in the same way.

For all I know, I’ll experience a sudden rush of loss next week, and it will shift my perspective. But currently, I view the change like I view the window in my grandparents’ basement.

Yes, remembering Liberty, I feel nostalgic – though not true nostalgia, since I was just there the beginning of this month – but I’m also glad that I’m big enough and strong enough to leave.

All good things must come to an end.

At the beginning of the 2019 Fall semester, I said, “Many people might call this the start of a new chapter in my life…But I don’t think we get chapters in life. If we did, it’s a new one every morning.” However, I think I need to revise that statement. Life has definitive seasons – and these seasons could very well be called chapters. And the chapter, the season, of my life at Liberty is closing. But whether this is chapter 10 or chapter 3 remains to be seen.

Not all change holds the same bundle of positive and negative emotions. But as the world turns and changes, I hope you will find the strength and flexibility to turn and change with it.

Chapters end – but the story doesn’t.