I have had this post drafted since April 29th, 2013.  An entire year has passed, and it still hasn’t been enough time for me to figure out how to say goodbye to the first place I ever felt like I belonged.

It’s funny, you know.  How things change.  How you come to a place so resistant to new experiences and new people because you don’t know how what you’ve come to could possibly be better than the things you’re leaving behind.  That was the first lesson Duquesne ever taught me– that it is okay to try things outside of your comfort zone and to be friends with people you never imagined yourself being close with.  I met a boy that isn’t anything like me and he turned my whole world upside down.  He taught me that being broken is a myth, that you have to be willing to pick yourself back up.  He made me a better person by making me realize that the people who really matter, you don’t even have to try around– it’s natural and easy, like breathing.  He’s my best friend, for better or for worse.  I never would have had that if Duquesne hadn’t opened my heart and mind to giving people first and second and third chances.  The same can be said of my beautiful, strong roommate– that first impressions don’t always count and sometimes people can be the literal embodiment of sunshine in your life if you let them, and don’t judge them too harshly for singing E. T. on the way to Rita’s on a March afternoon.  This group of friends, from the three bluffsketeers to today are the greatest victories I achieved in college.  They are what I am most proud of.

Because that’s what is important, you know.  Yes, we have all lost countless hours of sleep trying to make it through this rigorous lifestyle; we’ve all attempted to balance school and friends and life.  College has been an exercise in patience, in testing our limits and finding out what does work and what doesn’t.  I don’t pretend like any of us have it figured out.  In fact, many of us may be more confused about what we want to do when we “grow up” than when we started.  A lot of us don’t have jobs, aren’t certain where or if we’re going to grad school– the whole, wide world is opening up in front of us and it is the most exhilarating and terrifying thing that has ever happened.  We’re still babies in the grand scheme of the universe.  We still fight too much and drink too much, we don’t know how to let things go and we’re afraid of what other people think.

But really, truly, getting to figure things out means getting to go on the next adventure, turn the next page.  We are trying and failing.  More than anything, Duquesne has taught us how necessary it is to do both.

I always tell people that I didn’t pick Duquesne- Duquesne picked me.  And it continued to pick me over and over again for the past four years.  It picked me when Dr. Engel helped me realize that what I want to do and what I am good at is writing.  It picked me when it gave me the education that was better than anything I could have ever imagined– by pushing me intellectually to think about things that were uncomfortable or difficult.  It picked me when it gave me this group of people– this dysfunctional family that is more than I could have ever deserved.  Duquesne is so, so special to me.  It’s the place where I really started to figure out at least who I’m not, because I wholeheartedly believe that there’s never one specific way that a person always “is.”  I could wax poetic about this place for days on end, reminiscing about the good and the bad, all necessary and all beautiful.

I am incredibly sad to be leaving, but I am more blessed and grateful than I could have ever imagined.  Being surrounded by these people, both my student colleagues and professors, has been the most amazing experience of my life thus far.  Anything good that happens to me for the rest of my life will be partially indebted to Duquesne, for making me try harder, learn unlimitedly, and love deeper.  I’m not just a better student or a better writer or a better leader.  I am a better person.  Duquesne made me a better person.

I would be remiss in not thanking my parents, sister, dog, and select friends from high school for being incredibly loving, patient, and supportive.  My dad loves Duquesne and has always told me how grateful he is that Kelly and I decided to attend here.  I am so proud to have inherited that love of Duquesne, and so blessed to call him my father.  I would not have been able to do any of this without him and my mother– who, as I was growing and adopting fictional characters as my own and trying to figure out who I am, never realized that the person I most want to be is her.  I am also incredibly blessed to have been able to share Duquesne with Kelly, the best friend I’ve ever had and 75% of the reason I’m still sane, and I hope that she enjoys her senior year as much as I have.  It will be over too soon.

Graduating from high school didn’t seem scary to me.  That felt like I was going home, going somewhere that I would finally feel like I belonged.  And let me tell you, I got it.  And I got it beyond my wildest imagination.  So that is why it is so hard to leave Duquesne.  Why it feels like I’m grieving.  Because graduating from high school meant I was going home.  And graduating from Duquesne feels like I’m leaving it.  I may end up in New York or in Washington D. C. or Chicago, who knows where.  But I do know one thing for certain- This Bluff and this group of people will always be home.