To the ones that make it all worth it

The last few months of your senior year felt like dramatic irony — knowing your days were numbered and mine weren’t, and those BP pews we christened, those hallways we passed through, would soon be filled by new girls (who aren’t named Katie or Helen or Elizabeth or the countless others who have made this all worth it).

It’s not like anyone had any say in the matter. Graduating was sort of what you had to do. 

It’s not like the tuition pays for itself, and those CJs nights waiting in line for 45 minutes in the cold would’ve (theoretically) gotten old. 

This was all a part of the plan — finish your credits, don’t fail macro, present a capstone, finish a script, wear a white dress, toss a cap in the air, go to some grad parties, maybe even go to Italy, pack up and leave. 

Be terrified. 

Do it anyway. 

Graduate. 

It all sounded so simple, moving that tassel from right to left. Packing up and leaving. I don’t know if it was simple or not, but it’s what had to happen.

You had to go, and that’s something I had to be okay with. 

Now that I’m back on campus, this Notre Dame life feels so different now. I went to Irish Flats the other day for a pregame and found myself across the hall from Brooke and Haley’s apartment, only Brooke and Haley don’t live there anymore. 

I went to Irish Row and walked past Kathe’s old room in Zahm and felt the same thing.

It felt strange coming to terms with you not being here—some of my best friends, some of my sisters. 

You were the girls I curled up in bed with, cried with you over your pink eye or a stupid swollen hand. You were the girls who (hardly) judged me when I wore my big baggy blue sweatshirt three days in a row during finals. You were the girls I bore my soul to on Sundays on couches in apartments or dorm rooms in our sleepy college town. You were the girls I scampered with to bars and to bed, knowing that each night out had the potential to be the absolute peak of our lives (and each night in was some secret blessing). You were the girls I wanted to share all my shameful, sad, quiet stuff with because you’d always listen and always love me anyway.

You were the girls I wanted to stick around here forever. But you couldn't be here forever, and I’m realizing that’s actually a very good thing.

Because if this college experience never ended, we wouldn’t have had so much fun.

We wouldn’t have danced so many nights away and kissed so many frogs. We wouldn’t have pulled so many ridiculous hours in the Jungle or the Pen. We wouldn’t have squeezed each other's hands so sincerely after every Our Father. 

Perhaps this fall, when you feel the nip teasing your shoulders or see a squirrel that isn’t extra fat and extra friendly, you’ll wish you were back in Notre Dame, Indiana. But it’s okay that you’re not. 

Because it would’ve been too easy to stay this way forever. 

And you are far too good to stay here forever. And the world needs you far too much. 

For now, it’s time that you go see more of the world, Uber to places other than East Wayne Street and Corby Boulevard. It’s time you meet people other than Some Guy from Dillon and The Girl Down the Hall from Me in BP. 

And when you feel sad or feel yourself missing this place, know I’ll be teaching the girls on my floor how to dance like you or pull an all-nighter like you or make people laugh like you or love like you. I’ll teach people at bars how to have fun the way we did in Flats or CJ’s or Newf’s. I’ll continue to love my friends here, sit lakeside or sprawl on a quad and really mean it.

I love you. Go fulfill the promise.