Until recently I was so ready to go. I kept saying “I’m so ready.” “Graduation is so soon.” But now it’s hit. Yesterday in 20^th century (last Friday of classes, last day of dressing-up-just-because) Messer mentioned in his typical Messer fashion how for the last few days we were just going to quietly spend some time with Gilead, the last novel on our list. He also said it was to be a gift for the graduating seniors. For most of us that two o’clock hour this Wednesday will be our very last class.

So like I said, it’s hit, it’s come. It feels as if someone has run a thread through my little heart and is holding it gently over some little canyon. When my heart becomes too heavy, I think the thread might break. I suppose my best bet is to figure how to live with a heart suspended in the breeze like that, a heart that feels every little motion, every change in the weather. I will not mind when the thread breaks, but I’ll keep my eyes wide open till it does.

Tonight Laura and I’ll go to Greek Sing, and I’ll sit and watch and I’ll love it as wholeheartedly and inexplicably as I always I have. I’ll write my last little paper on writing as vocation. I’ll give my honors presentation and go to Dr. Brown’s house for dinner and make food for our last Quad party. I’ll pay attention to the way familiar feet descend stairs, to which stones are missing on the bridge and to where the rain puddles on either end of it. I’ll pay attention to the deep, deep green of the grass here that I’ve never gotten over and never will, to the way we crouch to check our little mailboxes, and to the way the sun (when it comes) draws us all outside, hungry, as if light is the stickiest, sweetest thing. I’ll pay attention to the silence in the chapel at midday, to the ready laughter of a room of full of English majors, and to the slow way we all move in line, waiting for communion come Sunday night.

I’ll hug people and I’ll write things down, and then the thread will break with the weight of it all and I’ll go home.