T

he internship searches have 
morphed into job searches, 
the sought-after executive 

board positions are now ours and our 
points have gotten us up to the front 
rows at the football games; after three 
short years, we’ve become seniors.

And in eight much shorter months, 

we’ll be alumni.

Most of us, myself included, can 

probably remember — as much as we 
might try to forget it — our freshman 
orientation, the day we moved into 
our first dorm room and (believe it 
or not) getting to our first class 15 
minutes earlier than Michigan time 
(RIP) required, utterly overprepared.

The last three years have gone 

by faster than any of us expected — 
much faster than the first three years 
of high school. Most likely, even for 
those of us that peaked then too.

Scrolling 
through 
Instagram 

Sept. 4, with the endless “last first 
day” captions, brutally reminded 
me of how much longer I have here. 
It brought an onslaught of stress 
mixed with sadness and a tinge of 
excitement.

I’ve seen my own focus and that 

of my friends shift from the next 
semester or year to the next five or 
10 years. We’re now wondering where 
we’re going to be come May of 2019 
(or, avoiding that thought like we’ve 
avoided 8:00 a.m. classes for the past 
seven semesters).

Don’t 
get 
me 
wrong, 
that’s 

important. I don’t think any of 
us want to wake up the day after 
graduation, fight our way through 
our likely fuzzy thoughts and realize 
we have no idea what we’re going to 
be doing the next day (though, for 
some of us, this might be the first 
time while living in Ann Arbor that 
we’re happy about a 12-month lease 
ending in mid-August).

The stress of a job search forces 

me to have tunnel vision toward 
the future, blocking out everything 
else that’s going on around me and, 
inevitably, keeping me from truly 
embracing this last year.

But it dawned on me that I’ll never 

again be around the people I’m 
surrounded with now. That brought 
me back to reality, back to where I am 

now. Soon enough, there won’t be any 
midnight trips to Pinball Pete’s the 
night before an exam, nor shutting 
down bars (at least in Ann Arbor), nor 
midnights at The Michigan Daily.

It’s easy to see if I don’t cherish the 

time and people I have here, eight 
months will come and go, and I really 
won’t be ready to graduate and move 
on from Ann Arbor.

Talking to a friend who graduated 

a few years ago, I mentioned the trips 
out to Colorado with the snowboard 
club, the weekend trips to New 
York, the overnight fly fishing trip 
for a king salmon run in northern 
Michigan that went terribly wrong.

What struck me was that he told me 

he wished he had spent his time like 
that, instead of completely focused on 
where life would be taking him.

That’s not to say I’m doing things 

right. I don’t think any of us will find 
that perfect balance of being here, 
embracing our senior year, all while 
preparing for the future. But that’s 
not to say it isn’t worth trying. 

After we graduate, everything will 

change. Some of us are ready for 

that change, ready to move on, while 
others surely aren’t. But until May, 
until we’re no longer undergraduates, 
we can’t lose sight of where we are 
now.

Things won’t ever be like this again. 

Soon enough, we’ll be full-fledged 
adults dealing with our full-fledged 
debt. But for now, embrace living with 
your friends in your shitty houses (or 
expensive, nice apartments), dealing 
with shitty landlords.

So moral of the story — sorry for 

the cliché — stop and smell the roses. 
This ride is coming to an end soon, 
but don’t land preemptively.

Take that trip. Get coffee with that 

friend you haven’t seen in months. Go 
to that show, party, movie the night 
before an exam.

It’s scary that there’s an end in 

sight, undoubtedly. But I just hope 
once I fight through my own haziness 
the morning after graduation, I think 
to myself, “I did it, and I’m ready for 
what’s next.”

Wednesday, September 26, 2018// The Statement 
7B

Seniors, prepare for landing

BY COLIN BERESFORD, DEPUTY STATEMENT EDITOR

Courtesy of Miranda Miley

