Goodbye (Last Words)

Beloit College sucks. I know you, dear reader, do not need me to convince you of this, because you’ve experienced it yourself. As cathartic as it might be to sit here and write a farewell letter filled with all of the things I’ve hated about going to college here, it’s not actually what I want to use this time to say.

Yes, Beloit College sucks, but my time here did not. I am about to leave, having met some of the most amazing people I’ve ever known in my life here, having learned things far beyond the classroom, having laughed, cried, and fallen in love. And that’s the thing. Though Beloit set up the foundation and provided the set dressing around all of these events, I refuse to credit an institution like this college with the things I’ve taken away from my four years here. That was all me. 

My freshman year, I went to my first Round Table pitch meeting completely on a whim. I saw a post about the meeting, gathered my friend Lili, and we went. I’ve never had more fun at a club meeting than I have at the pitch meetings for the paper, especially that year. It was a really tiny crew at the time, and everything was completely unserious and silly. It’s been an honor to be a part of this paper growing into what it has become today. I watched it go from a silly five-man operation to the investigative, well put together, professional (and still so fun) paper that you’re currently reading. Thank you, dear Round Table, for being such a big part of my college experience. 

Let this be your sign to do things on a whim here. The best parts of Beloit are the random things you just end up doing. Random club meetings, spontaneously running into friends and sitting outside with them for hours, drunk side quests, plans that keep going after they’re supposed to be done. 

Please let the wind carry you. You can make your time here good and life-changing; fight for that.

If you ever find yourself in The Round Table office when the evening light comes in just right and it feels like the moment will last forever, or lying in Aldrich field with your friends on a warm day, or walking home drunk in the rain and feeling like you’re in a dramatic music video, think of me. My ghost will stay in moments like that. 

Finally, to my fellow seniors, a poem: 

The world is hostile right now, backs turned, fences barbed

But here we are anyway 

The sun is rising

The seasons are changing

Birds chip and skies blue and waves rise and we are ready to meet them,

arms open embracing

Things will never be the same again

We laugh, we make plans, we hope despite it all

On the cusp of a moment so big there aren’t words

The shapes can’t be made by mouths, worn out from years of laughter, tears, love yous, hate yous, complaints, appreciations, sighs 

We will carry these years for lifetimes, reduced to photos on the wall, documents in a hard drive that is about to be deleted, visions that can never be fully described

The whole world is ready

Parking lot dreams, drab dorm room imaginations, drunk night out declarations, library break downs, airport ponderings

Culminated in something

I love you 

Doesn’t the sky look pretty up here?