Summer's end

Well, it's official, the best four years of my life are over.

Alright, so maybe I'm being a little facetious, but it is true that August 27 will mark the four-year anniversary of me moving into Stonehill as a tiny freshman. Tomorrow will also be the first day of classes for those currently at Stonehill, which seems to be a nice parallel, despite it being essentially due to chance. It's weird to think that it's actually been four years. I was back at Stonehill yesterday for the first time since graduating, to speak to some seniors about networking that I did through Career Services, and all that jazz. It was fun to talk to people whose position I was in a year ago, it was fun to see a bunch of familiar faces and talk with people that I hadn't seen in a while.

Our New Hall suite, but not really.

For me, being back at the place that I considered a home, it was really weird to walk around campus. The buildings were the same, the grass was the same; nothing had changed besides the color of the bridge between New Hall and the Science Center, and yet, it didn't really feel like home. The exact same place had (and will continue to have) an entirely different meaning. Walking around campus, I realized that I couldn't really go anywhere - I couldn't walk into New Hall to my suite and be home, couldn't sit down at a table in the cafe and grab food, couldn't really do any of that stuff. It was awesome to be back and to see old friends who still have some time left at Stonehill, but it was definitely strange to be there in an entirely new context. As a fellow alum that I ran into said, we have the rest of our lives to be good at being Stonehill alumni. I wonder if I'll be as comfortable in four years as a Stonehill alum that I was in four years as a Stonehill student. (Aside: This is why I blog. Because in four years, I'm going to be able to come back to this post and see if this actually holds up.)

So those are some thoughts in relation to being back at Stonehill for a few hours. What's weird about the real world is that summer doesn't really end, because summer never really started. My life is no longer broken down in semesters, and I no longer keep track of months based on school. Which is great, but also sad in a sense. So here's to you, summer-that-didn't-really-exist 2014. See you next year.