Endings are strange things. They tend to overlap with beginnings to leave us in limbo, trying to look backward and forward at the same time.
The sun is literally setting as I finish my three-year career at The Daily Utah Chronicle and my six-year education at the U.
Generally, I try to ignore endings. Books, relationships, life?they all exit best without fanfare. Sometimes I skip the last few pages of a book just because I’d prefer to leave it all up to my imagination.
High school graduation entailed a ridiculous amount of pomp and circumstance. I am not sure why I even got a cap and gown?perhaps I didn’t have a choice, I don’t remember.
There was never much question that I would graduate from high school, and it didn’t give me much of a sense of accomplishment. But, still, the whole world seemed open to me. I could do anything I wanted.
Now, six years later, I find myself in the same place, but perhaps a little more realistic.
But now I am having second thoughts about moving on.
In books, and especially movies, I love unexpected endings. There’s nothing better than finding out Bruce Willis was really dead or that someone was really someone else who you would never expect. Then you get to spend the rest of the day thinking about it.
Life is kind of the reverse of this; you spend all your time thinking about it before it happens.
Will I get a good job/have kids/move to Europe/own a car/get fat? The possibilities are endless.
Looking back over stories and headlines for the Year in Review, these past months look manic-depressive to me. But then I am not really looking at the text.
And while thumbing through our Openings issue, published at the start of Fall Semester, I could read our aspirations between the lines.
We would tackle touchy issues like Mormon/non Mormon relations on campus.We would add depth and variety and insight to our coverage. We would recruit the best and brightest from the student body.
Perhaps I’m only speaking for myself, but I doubt it.
Now someone else is deciding how to change things, how to make them better. Someone else gets to screw things up and, occasionally, succeed.
I’ve been counting down the sections I would have to put together for the past two weeks. Now I’m nearly at zero.
In general, my fellow soon-to be graduates do not seem much perturbed by May 10’s arrival. Trips to Europe, good jobs, law school scholarships (and debt) and cross-country moves are entirely too distracting.
But there are also tight job markets, endless searches and rejection letters. Makes the sheltered world of higher ed sound a little more appealing, doesn’t it?
People often speak of their college years as if lining them with gold. But despite the gratitude I feel for this place, I have no desire to relive my life the past six years. I doubt any of us do.
Zero.