The good, the bad and the ugly: the end of an era

And so it ends. After five, yes five, long years at Emporia State that blessed/feared day of graduation is almost upon me and I am told by the calendar in our office that I must write one last column. Flashes of “90210” go through my head as I try to compose the most accurate, awe-inspiring, freak-fest of journalism to sum up my time here.

Ideally if I could have any song playing over my montage of memories it would be “Don’t Look Back in Anger” by Oasis or “Holland, 1945” by Neutral Milk Hotel but feel free to play your own background music.

I remember when Screech came to ESU back in my freshman year. After the show my friends and I tried to find him in town and we did: in the Angels strip club at the old University Inn. I remember when my roommate sophomore year angered a skin head and had to put a restraining order on him. I remember wearing flip-flops to class in the snow because I couldn’t be bothered with shoelaces. I will treasure these memories and the countless, slightly or more illegal, not fit for print and fuzzy memories that I, for the afore-mentioned reasons, will not innumerate.

These things made college more than just an academic experience and the people I’ve encountered will forever have a place in either my heart or my big book of grievances. Either way, they will be remembered. This brings me to my next though about graduation: what the hell am I going to do now?

Andre Codrescu once said that the state of your average adult is in the custody of other adults. I take this to mean that we are not so much accountable to each other in an anti-Fountainhead sort of way but that we are dependent on each other to a fault. I don’t feel bitter about this but I do feel that if I spend too much time worrying about pleasing other people, I will regret it. It is with this thought in mind then that I have decided to take time off to just be lost after graduation.

I have every intention of continuing in journalism or broadcast production but I have never been more free in my life. I have no husband, no kids, no formal job. I will never be this free again. I’m going to take this time and use it as I see fit.

I’m going to travel. I want to see England again and my awesome to the tenth degree former roommate in Switzerland. I want to go places where no one knows me and I want to go there on my own terms. I’ll do the whole grownup thing, I promise mom, but until I get to that point I want to do everything I may not ever get a chance to do again.

I don’t want to be tied down right now. I don’t want to regret anything, even though I know this will be impossible. But I would rather regret something really good as opposed to regretting never trying in the first place. So I would like to close with the same song my brother and I sang when they towed away his busted ‘93 Ford Exploder signaling an end of an era: “Dust in the wind. All we are is dust in the wind.” Don’t let the man get you down, ESU. You keep that breathless charm, I mean it.