Saying goodbye is hard to do. I should know; I’ve written the first hundred words of this senior farewell half a dozen times.
Each time, I only last a couple paragraphs before I start quoting “Breakaway” by Kelly Clarkson and start crying into my Diet Coke.
What is it about saying goodbye that I find so difficult? It’s probably the part after “goodbye,” where I have to walk off into the sunset-or in this case, move back home with my mom-and leave four years of my life behind me.
Truth be told, I have never reacted well to these kinds of dramatic moments of truth.
I remember saying goodbye to my mom the day she dropped me off at Saint Louis University for the first time. I kept reaching for excuses for her to stay. I needed shower shoes that matched my towels. No one would ever feel comfortable in my Clemens dorm room/cell if I didn’t have those throw pillows. Of course, I couldn’t live without that poster of a monkey wearing headphones!
But eventually, my room was stuffed to capacity with useless Target accessories. It was time for her to leave and for me to slap on some blue body paint and join the rest of the freshmen in embracing the Billiken lifestyle.
As she drove away, I abandoned my attempt to be a cool and collected college student. My eyes stung with tears. My stomach sloshed uneasily. My legs buckled under the weight of the unknown. I would later associate these feelings with eating at Salsarita’s, but that night, my uneasiness centered on the four-year blank canvas that lay before me.
And now, with my last issue as an employee of The University News and my last weeks as a student at SLU, I have filled that canvas with awkward pauses, unfortunate hairstyles, good friends and great outfits.
It won’t surprise anyone to read that some of my sweetest memories at SLU have taken place in The UNews office. Oddly enough, very few of them have anything to do with producing a newspaper. Of course, there was my first day on staff, when I was zooming from one side of the office to another in my very own rolly chair and accidentally sent a computer sailing off of its desk.
Then, the (many) time(s) that a DPS officer walked in on me singing “The Sound of Music” at 2 a.m. on a Monday. Or any of the countless times that fellow editors have made me laugh until I cry . or cry myself to sleep.
And now, after thousands of words, hundreds of pages and countless sleepless nights, there’s only one thing left to say: I’ll spread my wings and I’ll learn how to fly. I’ll do what it takes till I touch the sky . Oh dear; here comes Kelly.
My caffeine-addled brain has obviously run out of steam just in time; it seems I have reached the outer rim of my 500-word limit.
I only have a few more words to sum up my ramblings for the last time. Here it goes: Goodbye. I hope my next four years are as rich and rewarding as the last four have been.
Adam Tamburin is a senior graduating from the College of Arts and Sciences. He is the Editor-in-Chief of The University News.
