The D-Spot

Author: Dina Magaril

It seems counterintuitive that after four years of building up relationships, making connections, and forming attachments to places and people, we will ultimately have to let go of them. For me, this idea has lingered in the theoretical realm until recently, with my impending Jan. 31 graduation date forcing me to examine my journey through the land of Middlebury. I spent the first two years here trying to find my niche, mostly complaining about how suffocated I felt at Middlebury. I struggled with a major, searching for something to be passionate about that would tie me to this place rather than me view it as a transitional period in my life that I couldn't wait to be over with. Fed up with the world of the bubble, and feeling inexplicably outside of it, I spent my sophomore year perusing other college Web sites and began working on transfer essays. But, as luck would have it, procrastination led to missed deadlines, and nightly therapy sessions with my parents convinced me to hold on for a few more years and look to my junior year abroad as the break I needed.

I loved the year I spent in Buenos Aires, but more than allowing me to live in a vibrant city with the best steak I've ever had, it made coming back to Middlebury a much more pleasant experience. I was more focused, happy with my declared major, and could begin to distinguish a shape to my future self. I finally felt at home at Middlebury as the social anxieties of past years melted away into oblivion.

Maybe this is the journey one must take in college; suffer for a few years before achieving the Nirvana of being comfortable in your own skin. As a super senior Feb, I've reached the next and last phase of my college journey. I must now find a way to straddle the delicate balance between solidifying the relationships to both people and values acquired during my time here, with the fact that the next few years are going to be some lonely ones.

Contrary to popular belief, we don't spend our college years "finding ourselves." In actuality, our college years are some of the most confusing, out-of-character, testing experiences that we'll probably ever have. Most people not only get lost while they're here, but question every fiber of knowledge that tied them to who they used to be and what they believe in. It's those next few years after college that will be the really formative ones. More than any take-home exam, we'll be thrown one life test after another as our values, certainties and securities will be challenged, shattered and built up again. And for many of us, we'll be doing this alone.

Don't get me wrong; I'm excited that I'll be spending so much time with myself. Sure, I'll miss the communal nature of having all my best friends within a 1?2 mile radius, ready to offer advice and baked goods at a moment's notice. But they'll be doing their own inevitable letting go, growing apart and growing up.

I see these next few years as a window allowing us to really figure ourselves out. We can move to another city, or another country, and we can do this because once we leave here, we are expected to be self-reliant individuals. Clearly, most of us are far from there. Being fed three meals a day and having our bathrooms cleaned for us have aided in assuring this, but now we'll be forced to try.

It will be hard when the time comes to finally say goodbye, I'll miss my friends and my professors and Vermont falls and maybe even winters, but I'll leave here knowing that I am capable of being alone, confused and lost, at least for a little while.