I vividly remember standing in the never-ending line outside Founders waiting to get my first Guilford I.D. and the key to my Milner dorm room. Trying to be as “me” as possible, I was wearing a black Bright Eyes t-shirt, a yellow plastic bow in my hair, and huge tortoiseshell sunglasses.
My geriatric-inspired sunglasses addiction aside, I’m not that person anymore. I barely recognize the girl from three years ago.
Newly 18 with a round face and eyes cast downward, I had a paradoxical confidence in my belonging at Guilford. I thought this was where I would seamlessly fit in, and where I could grow to my full potential (albeit I thought I was already “all grown up”).
While the last three years haven’t been seamless, and I’ve needed a lot more personal growth than I had ever anticipated, Guilford has become home – this is where I belong. But now on the eve of my graduation, it is time for me to find my next home.
Although I’m not technically house hunting (I’m one of those cool kids moving back in with Mom and Dad), it feels like I’m knee deep in life’s real estate market. Acting as my own realtor, I have pretty high standards for the next phase of my life.
Aesthetically, I know I’ll never find another place like Guilford.
I highly doubt there is anywhere on this earth with grass as soft as the plot in front of the library. And comforts like the perpetually warm cement block behind Milner that is perfect for napping, the wrought iron picnic table on Founders patio, or the swings in the woods, are hard to come by.
But it’s more than landscaping and lawn furniture. I’m struggling to find a place that will give as much back to me as Guilford has.
Besides the obvious knowledge gained at an institution of higher education, I’ve learned so much here-not only from professors but from my peers, from my friends, and from the members of my new family. For three years now we’ve been our own professors and have constantly been teaching each other.
No matter how sleep deprived, hysterical, or otherwise intoxicated we might be, my friends are always critical social analysts. We’re often sitting in the living room with the remnants of a game of Kings scattered on the floor as we deconstruct our racial identities or sociologically analyze our romantic relationships (a hook up is just another case study for a group of SOAN students).
These years have offered me so many other unconventional lessons that I fear will be lacking in “the real world” outside the bubble. From experiencing unity in the aftermath of the Bryan incident, to performing advocacy in a blindfolded World AIDS Week protest, to being an informal mediator via my Guilfordian Forum editorship, Guilford has truly shaped me and my sense of social consciousness.
As these final weeks fly by, I am vacillating between the unshakeable fears of the post-graduate reality that awaits me, and I am in total awe of my personal transformation.
My time here has certainly been a collegiate rollercoaster, with shining moments of accomplishment and dismal hours spent crying at my desk as I just tried to get by. But I realize that despite all of my complaining, anger, tears, and confusion over the past three years, I’m better for it.
I know it is clichéd to end like this and I sincerely hate sappiness, but I’m grateful for what this place and these people have given me. I’m a new person with a new spirit and new purpose to my life.
Thank you, Guilford.