viewpoint
Lost earrings
Alysa Guffey | Friday, September 3, 2021
I got my ears pierced at 20 years old; I am currently 20 years old. I subsequently bought three pairs of earrings because I was so excited I could finally shop for earrings; upon college move-in, I lost said pairs of earrings. Now, I am left with one lone pair of earrings that can never be changed. The irony has not been lost on me — waiting so long for something, enjoying it for the smallest amount of time and then being back to square one, almost.
Putting this feeling into words reminded me of how leaving freshman year was a similar sort of feeling. Coming back to South Bend last fall was returning home yet starting over at the same time. Nothing was the same yet everything was the same. Then, two weeks ago I found myself returning to campus for my junior year, halfway done with college.
From here on out, my time at Notre Dame is going downhill. This is just a fact — not a sentimental feeling, a sense of fear, an overused joke, but rather a fact. The sad part about it is that it feels like we have lost so much time here. As someone on the Observer Editorial Board put it, the junior class is 0-2 in terms of normal years of college.
Feeling like you have lost time is a hard emotion to overcome, no matter the circumstances. Yet here I am, accepting the hard fact that two years of college are gone but embracing the thrill that I still have two years of college to go. I remember coming to Notre Dame and thinking about all the things I wanted to check off my “Irish bucket list,” if you will. Once arriving in South Bend, I realized there are so many more experiences than I thought possible, and there are still multiple experiences I want to seek out.
I want to go on a day trip to the dunes with my friends. I want to attend a Notre Dame football bowl game. I want to visit every undergraduate hall on campus. I want to have a semester where I rationally use my Flex Points and still have some left for finals week. I want to go on a retreat. I want my friends to be able to come and visit me. I want to take a creative writing class. I kinda want to swim in the lake. I want to go on a real spring break trip. (Who knew this would be so hard to come by?)
Most of all, I want to leave this place with no regrets, and there is so much time to make up for lost time. Instead of thinking about all the time we lost in the past, I encourage you to join me in making the most of our future time. No matter if you’re a lucky — in some ways — first-year or scared senior, we all have the same 24 hours in a day and seven days in a week.
Moral of the story: It’s never too late to do something new. I never thought I would get my ears pierced. No one did. I sometimes used it as my fun fact.
Second moral of the story: Nothing is ever really lost. Here’s to finding our lost time and my earrings that I miss dearly.
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
