Over Thanksgiving, I got to spend a week with my 19-year-old sister, who’s a sophomore at a state school in the Midwest.
As she told me about her life, classes and friends, it struck me how much of myself I recognize in her experience. As my college career is ending, my sister is just hitting her stride.
I listen to her talking about studying for finals or registering for classes as I get ready to pick up my cap and gown, and I want to tell her, “Slow down! This will only last so long. Don’t wish it away.”
It’s so great to see her coming into her own, and it reminds me what that was like and also how hard it was. College wasn’t always easy or perfect, which I forget sometimes in a final semester that I’ve packed with Wildlife Issues and football game weekends. Talking to her makes me think back on all the fights I had with my roommates, the classes I had to drop or how upset I was when I couldn’t come home one summer. Our conversations make me remember that I didn’t used to have this all figured out, back when every semester was a completely new and surprising experience.
There are the lessons I’ve learned that I want her to somehow absorb by osmosis. I wish I could make her understand that people don’t always mean well and that you aren’t saved from pain simply by meaning well yourself. I want to explain that not every friendship in college is forever, not every decision is life-changing, and not every class will determine your future.
I also want her to believe that she can have some of the best times of her life despite the stress of figuring out what you’re going to do after the four years are up. I want her to have fun and parties and boyfriends. I want her to find her passion.
But, as my mom learned from watching me, her oldest child, go through my four years at UF — these aren’t things you can tell someone. I had to learn by experience, by having regrets, by looking back now and wondering where the time went.
I feel like there’s so much I’ve gained in four years, and looking at my sister is like looking into a mirror — but she’s her own person. Her college experience will be her own, not mine. And I’m having to come to terms with the fact that mine is over.
I won’t have another first football game or walk around with a campus map. I won’t discover new buildings or shortcuts. I won’t make new friends in class or be able to sit for an hour listening to my favorite professor.
She will.
So I’ll watch my little sister go through it all, brag about her accomplishments — she’s drop-dead gorgeous, an incredibly hard worker and is probably going to graduate with her master’s in the time it takes most people to get an undergraduate degree — and be there for her as she figures those things out for herself.
Seeing her all grown up has made me see that I’m finally a grown-up myself.
When I walk across the stage and receive my diploma in a couple weeks, I’ll be ready to move on. I hope my little sister is at least inspired to enjoy the time she has left.
Hilary Lehman is a journalism senior. Her column appears on Wednesdays.
