A senior in college is reclining 
on his front porch in the gray 
spring light of Ann Arbor. He’s 
trying to make sense of it all. He 
says:
The tuition was $50,000 a year, 
frontloading on classes to wrap it 
up in three years, that’s $150,000. 
Plus food and housing, which 
totaled about $900 a month, that’s 
$180,000, but I’d have needed 
to eat regardless, so maybe only 
$170,000.
Eighteen hours a week of 
classes, assuming I’d attended 
them all, for 90 weeks, costs $105 
an hour, which is expensive, but 
not too expensive, because my 
whole college life hadn’t been 
squeezed into just those 18 hours 
a week.
Bursley Residence Hall had 
those long, tunnel-like hallways 
— hallways with no windows that 
made me lose track of time — and 
the little convenience store with 
sushi that was always picked clean, 
minus the Philadelphia rolls. I 
remember I had this tree, growing 
outside my window, in the dorm, 
that changed color day by day 
that first fall. I’d never watched 
anything the way I watched that 
tree turn colors, which maybe 
speaks to my dependency on the 
room, but people visited me there, 
visited and laughed and slept on 
the floor and threw up on the 
carpet and listened patiently while 
I played them songs that, frankly, 
didn’t possess the sort of liveliness 

found in music that ought to be 
played around new friends, but 
they listened anyway, nodded and 
faked smiles and decided, after 
only a month or so, that they’d like 
to live with me once our class was 
kicked out of the dorms.
You sign a contract to become 
this little odd family, promise to 
nag each other about the dishes 
in the sink, the stains on the tile 
and oh, my god, why are there 
squirrels in the walls and mice 
in the basement, but it’s all okay 
because your housemate has a 
fighting spirit, just running in 
circles with a broom and a plastic 
tub, going to teach those squirrels 
a lesson. Your schedule picks up. 
Everything moves faster. Walk 
to class; no, run to catch the bus; 
no, skip class and write your 
thesis and hole up in your room 
while the dishes pile higher and 
higher. See the housemates less, 
yes, but when you do, it’s a real 
outpouring, because just today, I 
heard Truth House is throwing, 
and just today, I have a coupon at 
Domino’s, and for just one more 
song, we can dance, please, let’s 
just keep dancing. And everything 
kind of crescendos, faster than 
you know it, and all of a sudden, 
there’s less can you believe our 
house has a front porch? and more 
by the time the next season of this 
show comes out, we’ll be living in 
different cities.
So 18 hours a week would really 
be selling it short. More like 120 
hours a week, spent just absorbing 
the strangeness of it all. Say it’s 
only $16 per hour then, which isn’t 
too unreasonable.
Though it’s not just 120 hours 

because it doesn’t stop when 
you’re sleeping. I keep having this 
dream about a bowl of cereal, and 
I don’t know, maybe everyone 
has this dream, or some version 
of it, but the bowl feels warm to 
the touch, as if I’d just taken it 
from the dishwasher and the milk 
inside is cool. I’m eating heaping 
spoonfuls 
of 
Lucky 
Charms, 
all those alluring bright colors, 
eating, wondering what’s at the 
bottom, like I can’t wait to find 
out, but I’m terrified to find out, 
and at the bottom, it’s just an 
emptiness, lonely, like I’d never 
had any cereal at all. It’s easy to 
decide, then, to stay in the dream 
— to keep splashing around in 
the cool milk, stained with all the 
bright colors — but you move on 
because you have no choice, and 
I’m starting to realize, just now, 
as I’m coming to the end of it, that 
there is no end, no hard, fast line 
drawn in the sand to say, okay, it’s 
over, you’re an adult already, just 
pack it up and move on.
No, instead it all bleeds over, 
smearing like a child’s watercolor 
after you told them to let it dry, 
and the memories well up, just as 
everything else starts to go, and 
they leave you exhausted, gasping 
for air, washed up on a rocky 
shore, confronted by the images 
that keep appearing in your mind: 
You’re soaked to the bone in the 
pouring rain, grinning from ear to 
ear, walking quickly down South 
University Avenue, back when it 
was under construction; or you’re 
kneeling on Palmer Field, kneeling 
in the grass with a blank stare, like 
an idiot, because oh god, her ankle 
isn’t supposed to bend that way, 

but maybe it’s alright because your 
pre-med friend looks confident; or 
you’re trudging through the snow, 
then drumming your fingers on 
7-Eleven’s 
plastic 
countertop, 
making a joke to the man ringing 
you up, but he doesn’t laugh. The 
images flash past, too quick, 
really, to catch them all, so you’re 
stuck with just the brightest ones, 
chastising yourself for forgetting 
the details and replacing them 
with 
questions, 
unanswerable 
questions like, why did my English 
professor wear a mask some days 
and not others? or why had a 
photo editor worn bike shoes to a 
meeting?
The little images start to haunt 

you: not constantly, but in uneven 
increments, so one day you’ll be 
working away, laser-focused on 
some peculiar comma placement, 
and the next day you hear someone 
accidentally use a specific word, 
like barn or implication, that 
takes you back to a place where 
the images well up, and for hours 
afterward the memories feel fresh 
again. So it only cost maybe $8 
an hour, taking all that time into 
account.
I have to factor in the bad 
memories, though, and it’s hard 
to conjure them up now, in the 
warmth of spring, but I know times 
weren’t perfect. The everyday sort 
of bad occurrences have largely 

faded to the background, but one 
memory stuck around: when I 
had to say goodbye. The pressure 
started during a weekly meeting 
with some columnists — our last 
meeting — when a thought popped 
into my head, and I suddenly 
wondered which of them I’d ever 
see again. The question didn’t 
spark a panic so much as an odd 
fascination — an urge to hold onto 
all of life’s little guest stars, people 
I loved, but not enough to keep 
in touch with — and so I learned 
to say a permanent goodbye, not 
out loud, but quietly in my head 
whenever someone left a room. 

JOHN JACKSON
Statement Associate Editor 

The art of farewell

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

ARTS

over the

YEARS

Bis etum il ius eliquam usaerum eium 
velicti comnit dunt, tota que consequo is 
essunture dolor molesti beriore, il ea ne 
plab ipsae excero te volorep tation re 
videndunt omnihil ipienda veliqui nobites 
et laboriame lantiossunt hil ius arumqui 
dentibus, qui aliat pa qui simolessit, nes 
escilit harum que volorit eicia con plis 
everum fugitatur si quiae esto blaturem labo. 
Itatas mos venis arumnihilla ntentotatem 
aut etum hil il mod quam es est as endaesc 
ipiendis escium lation cupta doluptam ab 

2013
2014

MARCH 25 – U-M seniors detail their 
disappointment and uncertainty moving 
forward with graduation and job recruitment 
in the early days of the pandemic. 

SEPTEMBER 25 – Former Statement editors 
Marisa Wright and Andie Horowitz reflect 
on the influence and legacy of Ruth Bader 
Ginsburg after her passing on September 
18, 2020. 

MARCH 8 – For the 2023 Immersion Edition, 
Statement columnist Sammy Fonte put his 
cartwheels to the test when he “participates 
in” a Michigan women’s gymnastics team 
practice. 

MARCH 20 – The Statement’s editorial 
team journeys to Port Huron, Mich. — the 
birthplace of our namesake, The Port Huron 
Statement. We investigate the origins of 
our section while reflecting on the role of 
creative nonfiction in journalism. 

2021

AUGUST 11 – Former Statement columnist 
Mackenzie Hubbard shares screenshots of their 
text messages as an unconventional way to 
memorialize and value the relationships in 
their life. 

OCTOBER 5 – Former Statement 
correspondent Mary Rolfes comments on 
church burning protests that occurred after 
a mass grave containing the remains of 215 
Indigenous children was found on the grounds 
of Kamloops Indian Residential School in 
Canada.

STATEMENT
over the
YEARS

2022
2023
2020

MAY 24 – With the anticipated overturning 
of Roe v. Wade, Statement correspondent 
Emily Blumberg investigates the harmful 
ways in which the U-M community could be 
impacted. 

JULY 15 – Statement associate editor Lilly 
Dickman shares her heartbreak following a 
shooting in her hometown. She reflects on the 
political issues surrounding gun control while 
mourning for other American communities 
forever changed by gun violence. 

Design by Leah Hoogterp

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Graduation Edition 2023 — 7
Statement

