There’s something about the end of the Spring semester that provokes a certain type of introspection. Daily rituals, people and locations take on a deeper meaning as you assess how far you’ve come and where the hell you actually plan on going. It’s a discomforting mixture of nostalgia for another year gone by and the hesitant acknowledgement that time will continue to move at this swift pace. Everything you encounter becomes a symbol of change as friends continue to graduate and you’re left with a completely different Gainesville than the one you first encountered so long ago. In reality, these thoughts are most likely a thinly veiled attempt at procrastination, but that doesn’t make them any less profound.
Surprisingly enough, the catalyst of my own “end-of-semester introspection” was a recent weekend trip to Tallahassee. It was the first time all of my close friends had been together since the summer after high-school graduation, and I genuinely had no idea what to expect. While I had seen them all individually over the years, the promise of a revived high-school dynamic was simultaneously terrifying and thrilling. When I eventually returned to Gainesville, I was probed for tales of debauchery as though I’d spent a week in Vegas, and I found myself apologizing for a marked lack of scandalous tales.
If the weekend had a theme (aside from the pizza-themed birthday party I was there for), it would be, “Everything changes, and everything stays the same.” My friends were exactly as I’d left them in 2013, with their aggravating and lovable quirks intact. Sitting at dinner with them and exchanging jabs and inside jokes instantly transported me back to our days in the crowded, raucous high-school cafeteria. I hadn’t expected everything to remain so constant. It seemed as if the last few years had no effect on us.
I quickly realized that, while all of us remained identical to our younger selves at the core, it was the interactions with our environments that had changed. With graduation, higher education and the working world looming over our heads, it was only inevitable that we grew up. In the summer of 2011, we spent hours floating in a Georgia lake until we pruned, planning our lives as neurosurgeons, photographers and professional drifters. Adulthood seemed like a distant mirage at the time; but sitting across from them in Tallahassee, I realized it was already happening. “Aren’t we still 15?” we asked as we discussed doctoral degrees and LSAT law school aptitute tests.
Yet perhaps the most noticeable change was that Sunday morning. Gone were the morning-after pilgrimages to Dunkin’ Donuts, inhaling stale bagels in pajamas and recollecting whatever questionable decisions we had made the night before. We went to an 8:30 a.m. brunch instead.
When my mother told me high school would be the best four years of my life, I was dubious to say the least. Though I still look back on that time in my life with general apathy, it was those few friends who made any of it worthwhile and have continued to remind me how far I’ve come. Unlike the friends you make in college, old friends see you as the combination of multiple selves, and they understand the transitions that brought you to where you are today. Thus, when you continue to find yourself engaging in end-of-the-semester reflections, looking to these friends will force you to realize that everything and nothing has changed.
Marisa Papenfuss is a UF English junior. Her column appears on Tuesdays.
