Leaving

I distinctly remember saying goodbye to my family before I boarded the plane that would carry me to New Jersey, OA, my new world. Well, not the goodbye so much — in fact, I can’t recall the words we said at all — but the moment just after. The “what the fuck am I getting into” as I walked away from not just the only home I had known, but also all the things that defined me — the people, places, activities that had shaped my identity over the past 18 years.

So this was my triumphant start to college. Sitting next to a middle-aged woman, tuning out the flight attendant’s security announcement as I wondered how I could have been so excited to leave high school for this.

And then I got to campus. Sitting in the passenger seat of a car I barely knew, we rounded the traffic circle and billowing above the road was a giant, orange and black “Welcome” banner. Maybe I’ve watched one too many romantic comedies, but if there has ever been a moment of love at first sight, it was then and there. I was overcome by one of those smiles that shows in your eyes and cheeks but is felt throughout your entire body and core of your being. For the first time in days, I felt calm, sure and immeasurably happy.

Sometimes I can’t believe it’s only been four years since that moment. It feels like I’ve lived a lifetime here. I’ve read tens of thousands of pages, spent hundreds of hours in classes and hundreds more working; I’ve written the longest, best, hardest, worst and most interesting papers of my life; I’ve made the best friends and memories, had the best meals and conversations and built mine into the best of all possible worlds. How the hell was that just four years?

And then I think, where did the time go? Twelve week semesters flew by; years passed like days; and suddenly I find myself verifying the name I’d like on my diploma.

People keep asking if I’m excited to graduate. “No,” I tell them, because that’s what feels truest I’m not looking forward to leaving. I love this place, these people and the home both have given me so dearly that the prospect of leaving is anything but exciting.

Don’t get me wrong, college has been a rollercoaster: ups and downs, twists and turns, thrilling peaks, stomach lurching drops and then suddenly over, leaving you to wonder whether you want to go on this ride again or try one across the park. The end feels much like every roller coaster ride I’ve ever taken, too. Even though I scream, probably cry, and spend a good portion with my eyes clenched shut, I walk off laughing with my friends, glad that we rode it and with a new found appreciation for solid ground.

It’s an overdone metaphor, but I’ll go with it, because it does illustrate how I feel looking back over my Princeton experience. I’d gladly take this ride over again, and wish that it were twice as long. I’m not excited for it to come to a screeching halt. But, I know I’ll walk out on solid ground, laughing with my friends.

I’m not excited to leave, but I will continue to be happy once I do. I am excited about what comes next — setting up my apartment, settling into my office, meeting new people, exploring the next episode of my life. And my greatest comfort is the faith I have in the person Princeton made me: one who can take the tumultuous, roller coaster landscape of life and find, even build, a patch of solid ground.

When I packed up to leave for college, I had an abstract and cliched view of what college was supposed to do to me: incubate me from teenager to adult, transition me from high-school to “real world.” Somehow, through a regimen of academic instruction and experiential learning, in classrooms and dorm rooms, between lecture halls and dining halls, Princeton has done just that.

Not in a “Boy Meets World,” “I learned the value of hardwork and friendship” way. When I look back on what was so scary about leaving high school, leaving my home, it’s that I was leaving behind all the things I had ever known to make me me, and to make me happy. The things that defined me, my being and my happiness, were all external to my self. Nothing about my world, my system of being so far had challenged that.

And then I left.

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Leaving Princeton I feel totally different. In the four years I was here, the experiences I had and the friends I made, led me to internalize my self-conception and my sources of happiness. When I walk out FitzRandolph gate, I won’t be leaving my identity and home behind. The Princeton experience has given me a permanent sense of self and the Princeton community an eternal home. This time, I’ll be calm, sure and immeasurably happy.

Lily Alberts is an economics major from Nashville, Tenn. She can be reached at lalberts@princeton.edu.