There are 18 days of classes left, and as a senior, I am doing my best to prepare for the impending reality slaps that will be afforded to me by graduation. So far, this preparation has consisted mostly of me rolling around on the lawn and drinking PBR (usually at the same time), and that, in conjunction with a healthy amount of Googling the word "jobs," has seemed to work pretty well in terms of acclimating myself to the upcoming termination of the college lifestyle.
For four years, I have slowly but surely been checking things off the list of life skills I need to acquire before leaving here, simultaneously making sure I will be able to survive after college and trying to have an awesome time during it. Make friends: check. Feed myself: check. Learn to throw an awesome party: check. Manage money: check. Manage time: good enough. Despite my enduring lack of skills like "clean room," "find a job" and "don't set the kitchen on fire," I am confident that I will master them in time for my real life to start, and if not, I know I will figure out a way to compensate.
What I'm not prepared for, however, is my break−up. I'm not the only one; couples all over campus are dutifully avoiding the question of what comes after college in the hopes that if they ignore it, it will go away. My relationship can't play that game much longer, I fear. The relationship I am speaking of, of course, is with Tufts. We are breaking up, and short of failing a PE class (easy) and scrounging up 50 grand for next year's tuition (slightly more difficult), there's nothing I can do about it — I cannot turn a blind eye any longer.
Nor do I want to. The last time I ignored the inevitable end to a romance, I ended up with the relationship equivalent of gangrene. It was devastating, and the last I heard he was dating a stripper and in a band called Lowly, the Tree Ghost. I don't want that to happen with Tufts.
But suddenly, everything between us is about lasts. It is our last semester together, and it is peppered with things like the last Senior Pub Night, my last time in Tisch (just kidding, that one happened sophomore year), my last month's rent, the last time I go to class still drunk and, pretty soon, the last time I go to class — period. I can barely handle the finality, but we have to deal with this, and since one of us is not actually a person, I have to deal with this. Rolling around on the lawn was a good start, and I suggest you do the same — as much as possible — on every green spot on campus. In the days to come, I will be figuring out more ways to come to terms with what is the closest thing to the end of an era my young life can muster.
Face it, a lucky 86 percent of you will be graduating from Tufts at some point in the next four years. If you're a senior like me, you've got less than two months, so I suggest get your affairs in order. I don't mean relationship−wise — considering my personal romantic history reads like a zombie remake of "Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason" (2004), I'm the last person on Earth you should take romantic advice from. When it comes to Tufts, however, I'm a Jumbo through and through, so listen up — be true to your school. Have the talk. Spend some quality time, for the end is near. Maybe you can still be friends. After all, it's not Tufts, it's you — and breakin' up is hard to do.
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Jessie Borkan is a senior majoring in psychology. She can be reached at Jessie.Borkan@tufts.edu.
