Thanks for nothing, ticket office

I don’t know what I was expecting when I called the ticket office. Probably just a polite: “Hush child, you’ll be okay. You’re a senior, and you just messed up. Don’t worry. We’ll get you your season tickets.”

Instead, I was told “Katherine, you’ve called 3 times today, and the answer is still the same. You missed the waitlist deadline. The student section is sold out.” 

I was pretty caught off guard when the attendant said the student section was sold out mostly because I didn’t think that was possible. I was also pretty caught off guard when they called me Katherine because (a) I had never introduced myself to anyone in the ticket office, and (b) No one calls me Katherine except my parents when they’re super mad at me (and occasionally, Lili Idrovo). 

When I missed the student season ticket waitlist deadline I knew I messed up, but I didn’t account for my next best option: paying game-by-game on SeatGeek or cough up $1,000 for regular season tickets.

Before you ask, no, I did not cry and beg for student tickets. Although, I sort of wish I did. If I had known missing a couple of emails would cost me $800 (and the profound joy of going through Gate E with my class every home game), I might have checked my email a little more often. 

So, this weekend I went through Gate A with all the alumni and Real Life Adults (many of whom were waiting in the CJs line with me just a few short months ago), and it didn’t feel as strange as I thought it would. It felt sort of peaceful.

Although I knew I didn’t belong in Gate A, I felt a strange comradery with the guy to my left (Dillon Class of ‘82) and also the girl to my right (Cav Class of ‘23) — because the truth is I’m a lot closer to them than I am to being a first year. 

I’m a lot closer to cooking every meal for myself in some apartment or group house than I am to using fake money to buy overpriced sandwiches from Modern (although I love my overpriced sandwiches from Modern). I’m a lot closer to paying bills than I am to missing the student season ticket window (again).

I’m close but I’m not there yet, and thank God.

What no one tells you about senior year is that it’s more like a liminal space than anything else. It feels like you’re one foot in this Notre Dame life and one trembling foot out.

On the one hand, you’re fighting the "Peter Pan" of wanting to “stay here forever” and on the other simultaneously feeling the strange urge to go to Chicago every other weekend to feel like a real person living a real and robust life.

It’s weird. It’s sad. It’s all happening, and also ending.

Sometimes, on the Mondays or Tuesdays after game days you’ll see all the ending and beginning at once.

On one side of campus, there’s us: we are walking to DeBart, it’s sunny and the only life we know is the one where we’re students with bookbags and a million boxes to check by mid-afternoon. 

On the other side of campus, there’s them: everyone who passed through this experience, knows how to pay bills and raise a child (Dillon Class of ‘66 on a run around the lake) and (St. Mary’s Class of ‘75 hand-in-hand with Flanner Class of ‘71 at the Grotto). 

A part of me envies their post-retirement aesthetic — the geriatric shoes, baggy t-shirts and slow-walking. But even that I can’t be sure of. 

All the while, I wish I were 80 playing bridge at the nursing home and completely done with college. I also wish every undergrad tailgate lasted forever. I look at my friends in their cities scattered across the U.S. living their adult lives, and there’s nothing more beautiful to me right now than my sloppy lecture notes and weekend debriefs in dorm rooms and on apartment floors.

But all the while, I find myself feeling simply too old for this. There are some things here that I swear never get old: seeing a first year on the quad take a picture of the dome and it feels like you’re seeing it for the first time, eating a Boom-Boom salad and a CJs line (God, the party is truly the line).

I figure going through Gate A this season might be what I was always meant to do. Because the rest of my life I’ll walk through Gate A (or B or D), so I might as well get used to it. And with that, thank you to the Notre Dame ticket office for not accommodating me because you have taught me one of the greatest lessons of my senior year so far.

Love,

Kate