Here we are, again. Staring at the blank, scuffed up walls of our rundown apartment/dorm room/Greek house, wondering how the hell we got here. This happens every year, except we never truly believe this day will come again. Waves of nostalgia and sadness flow through our entire beings, and we sit and think to ourselves, “This sucks, but there’s no way I will feel this way again. I mean, I’m only sad because it’s the end of freshman year.” Then somehow we blink our eyes and inhale one time, and sophomore year has slipped through our hands, which are still grasping at the air to retrieve it back, somehow.

Now, you’re in true disbelief as you finish your last final as a junior, and you realize that soon enough you will be entering your last year of college. You’re entering the last year in your contended, exciting and life-changing world that you’ve created the past three years. I think this disbelief stems from the ambiguous idea of time. I mean, I think it is fair to say that no one really has figured time out, exactly. Time can be compared to so many things and can be molded so many different ways that it distorts our feelings and perceptions in a profound way.

For me, I compare time to the saying, “You never know what you have until it’s gone.” The relationship between the two concepts works for me because as you’re undergoing the school year, you truly live and experience each day in a unique way, even though you never really understand that you do. However, the days seem to pass, and sometimes you're wishing them away. That’s the thing about time, your feelings about time completely alter depending on your mood. One minute you have an exponentially difficult exam in your hardest class, and you're wishing it were just over, already. You’re wishing you were older when you’re young. You wish were 21 and didn’t have to worry about the harsh cops that patrol the campus on the weekends. You're wishing you were young when you’re old. You wish you didn’t have to think about trying to participate in the world of adulthood, just yet. You're wishing for Thursday, for Friday, for Saturday, until you’ve actually grasped how much time you’ve wished away. This realization usually occurs when you start to wish again, but this time, you're wishing for time back.

Time has unraveled right in front of you like a spool of yarn, and you let it go for so long that when it completely unravels, you’re swatting at the air, trying to return it to its original form. And that’s the thing about time — you don't know what you have until it’s gone. You never truly fathom how much time you have until you’ve lost it.

Nevertheless, this passing of time is part of life. These moments where you stare blankly at your walls — which have enclosed a multitude of memories, learning experiences, mistakes and heartaches — are milestones. These milestones wouldn’t be as painful if we were prepared for them, in a sense, but not prepared in the way you may think. We need to start preparing ourselves to allow life to happen. We spend too much time trying to alter each moment, trying to capture each moment and trying to make each moment an actual moment that we lose the significance of it. We need to get back to accepting the unpredictable, the simplicity and the naturalness of moments, because then maybe we’ll be content with the passage of time. We won’t be so shocked or wounded when it’s time to take down the decorations on the walls. We might be able to stare at the blank walls and think they don't look naked. We might be able to gaze at the color and texture and appreciate them for what they are without wanting to change them. Who knows, maybe we’ll trace our fingers over the bumps and scuffs and thank time for bringing us to this moment. To the place that we are able to call our home away from home. For the moments that have happened and will continue to happen, because you know what else they say about time — the best is yet to come.