There's no denying that as you get older, the years seem to practically fly by. I mean, Kenny Chesney said it perfectly in his song titled "Don't Blink" way back in 2007.
"Don't blink, just like that you're six years old and you take a nap and you, wake up and you're 25 and your high school sweetheart becomes your wife. Don't blink, you just might miss your babies growing like mine did. Turning into moms and dads....."
I mean, granted, I am freshly 21 years old, but this song really puts everything into perspective in ways it never really did back when it was released. Sure, I haven't been 6 years old in 15 years, I'm not yet 25 and married, I'm nowhere near having children and those said children are nowhere near becoming parents themselves. But I am a junior in college who suddenly realized the important message of this song.
About two weeks ago, it was time for the dreaded registration for next fall's classes. We were, of course, encouraged to go and speak with our mentors about the classes we wished to take for next semester and to make sure we were on track to graduate. When I went to meet with mine, the fact that I was a current junior barely crossed my mind. It wasn't until he picked up my registration information and said, "Oh, you're one of those," did it really hit me that my senior year was next year. I sat there in his office as he listed down everything I had completed in order to graduate on time next year and I sort of drifted off into my own thoughts. This couldn't be right. Graduation isn't a year away, no way.
When I left his office and walked down the sidewalks to the housing side of campus, I did my usual "play on my phone to occupied" thing and opened the Timehop app. I personally like to think that I'm not the only who always finds themselves suprised by the passage of time when looking at the app. I was shocked not only by the cringe-worthy Facebook statuses I seemed to deem worthy of posting every 10 minutes but also by the fact that these social media updates were nearly six years old, from freshman-year of high school. It really brings to light just how fast time has been flying by and how I feel as if I'm missing it all. I can't help but think about just how fast the years have gone by.
In fact, I haven't really stopped thinking about it. How could two years have gone by in a blink of an eye? Sometimes I feel it's as if my freshman year of college just started a year ago, and now here I am—a junior, about to be a senior. That's 547 days spent on this campus that have gone by faster than I could have ever thought they would. And in those 547 days are memories that at one time I thought were some of the greatest memories I'd ever make here, but I honestly couldn't tell you about them now, because I've forgotten them. That's hundreds of parties attended, thousands of sunset pictures taken and probably a lifetime of ice cream from The CEC ingested. Two years of my life here and it feels like none of it ever really happened.
In the spring of my freshman year of college, I was enrolled in a class that was mandatory for freshmen, called Human Experience. In this class, we were given an assignment where we had to write a letter to ourselves. It was a simple assignment that I was sure I could knock out in no time, but the only twist was that we would be writing it to our senior selves...and we would receiving this letter when we came back together as a class in the fall of our senior year. It was an idea, at the time, that seemed to be a million years away.
It's a scary thought—the days passing by and time continuing on. But I think what makes it more terrifying is the idea that one day my time at college will have ended and I'll be left wondering if I really spent it wisely. Before I know it, I'll be walking across that stage with my degree in my hand, preparing to take that fateful leap into the "adult world" with nothing but the lessons and tools that my family, friends and education have given me over the years. And I want to be able to look back on my time here with no regrets, nothing but happy memories.
I stepped foot on this campus as a freshman student at Eckerd, on Aug. 1, 2013. There were 1,390 days—four years—separating me from that graduation stage. At the time I wrote that letter to my senior self, I still had 1,116 days. But as I write this article, I have 395 days until graduation. That's one year, and one month until I walk across the stage and say goodbye to the place I've called home for the past 995 days.
There's no stopping time; it's inevitable. It's true what they say about time flying when you're having fun. God knows that these have been the best two and a half years of my life, and with just 395 days left, I plan on taking it one day at a time, living out my time here to the fullest and treating every moment like it's the last one that will ever happen.
