Week 4: Senior Week Reflections

Hey Tar Heels! Happy Senior Week to the Class of 2020- and happy birthday to me.

That’s right, I turned 22 in the comfort of my own home this week. My mom made a cake, I got three new books and Settlers of Catan, and my friends hung out with me on Zoom until my mom crashed the party to get our Catan game started (My younger brother won - I maintain that he cheated).

Honestly, it was a pretty good day! It was weird not to celebrate in person with my friends, or to walk down Franklin Street in a tiara, but I walked around my house in that tiara while blasting Taylor Swift’s anthem for this particular birthday for anyone that could hear. As life milestones go, that’s not too bad.

Speaking of life milestones, it is senior week! Not what we were picturing, huh?

I’ve found a lot of solace in going through my old pictures this week. I’m really bad at deleting pictures from my phone, which has turned out to be a good thing now. I have pictures from the National Championship and the incredible snow week of early 2018, but I also have snapshots from random days at Carolina - funny things written on whiteboards, gym days with my friends, dinners at Lenoir. I have birthdays, dance recitals, and a video of that time my professor read us Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” just before our final. Baseball games, basketball games, football games, trips to YoPo, trips to Jordan Lake, every first sip at the Old Well I ever took.

We sure can pack a lot into four years at Carolina.

When I started to look back through my pictures, I expected to feel sad - and there definitely is some sadness. But as I scrolled past the time I watched a lunar eclipse at Morehead, huddled close to my friends for warmth as we passed a thermos of cocoa back and forth, I realized that I’d almost forgotten about that. What an unexpected pleasure, to look at the collected memories of four years and remember all of it, even the parts I’d forgotten. From one image of me, my friends, and the telescopes, I was able to get lost in the entire memory of that night. 

This Senior Week, I’m remembering all the parts of my time at Carolina: the good and the bad, the mundane and the once-in-a-lifetime. I won’t be climbing the Bell Tower, but I can find some peace in reflecting on four years full of happiness, exhaustion, exhilaration, and life. 

Have a fantastic Senior Week, Class of 2020!