Long story short, I used to be able to do a lot of things behind the scenes on the ‘Prince’ website that, because I am no longer an editor, I no longer can. I discovered this when I wanted to read all the comments posted on the ‘Prince’ website that day instead of reading about Communist purges and show trials in Czechoslovakia. As I’d already checked my e-mail, nytimes.com, espn.com and every other site on my procrastinatory list — I’d even looked up old battleship plans on Wikipedia, which is not quite as random or pathetic as it sounds — this had the unfortunate effect of forcing me to go back to work.
But I couldn’t work. Something about not being able to keep pretending to be an editor stung. After dedicating close to 1,000 hours to this paper last year, I discovered that, much to my surprise, I just didn’t want to let go. I’d ended my final night of editing stumbling around Cloister yelling “Free at last!” So why was I having such trouble moving on? My high school ran workshops for the parents of graduating seniors, but I never thought I’d need similar help to get over Princeton and the ‘Prince.’
There is something fitting in the fact that my struggles to keep moving forward would be crystallized as a dichotomy between the two forces that dominate my senior year. First semester, the ‘Prince’ owned my life and those of the other editors. Now the thesis rules supreme, an absolute dictator demanding obedience. The biggest difference is that only one of those taskmasters necessitates truly leaving after its work is done. Beyond the trite sayings, the thesis pretty much is the end in that there’s pretty much nothing after it, whereas the ‘Prince’ goes on.
The finality of the thesis is truly horrifying and has led me to grasp onto those things that represent continuity and my past, like the ‘Prince.’ We all fear the unknown, especially when that future holds so little promise and so many potential pitfalls. And the truth is that I like it here at college; I’m not ready to be done. I’m not ready to stop being a college student and become what I sometimes jokingly refer to as a “real person.”
Unfortunately, part of being a real person means entering the quagmire of the job market. It’s hard to be happy about that prospect when brilliant friends with 3.9 GPAs haven’t gotten any offers, and others have accepted jobs they know they’ll hate just to have one. This is not what we expected when we arrived here four years ago; this is not what we were promised. Somewhere along the way, the wheels came off our lofty dreams and derailed our fantasies.
And as weird as it sounds, I already miss the things I haven’t lost yet because the eventual loss seems so inevitable. I miss my eating club even though I still go every day. I miss my column even though I’m (obviously) still writing it. But most of all, like Red after Andy Dufresne’s escape, I miss my friends. This time next year, we’ll be scattered to the four corners of the Earth, nary to unite again, and my life will be a little more drab and empty because of that. And that depresses me.
You see what I mean about an introspective moment?
There is so much I’ve yet to do and enough time in which to do it that this ennui can seem remarkably premature. But in reality the shock is that it arrived so late. Because for seniors, it really is time to start coming to grips with the fact that our days at this University are numbered and dwindling rapidly. As much as I hate not being able to hold onto the past and keep pretending to be what I no longer am, I think it might actually have been a good thing for me to have to deal with moving on earlier rather than later. And if that took a little bit of lost privilege, then so be it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some Communist purges to chronicle.
Barry Caro is a history major from White Plains, N.Y. He can be reached at bcaro@princeton.edu.
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