As graduation looms ever closer, columnist Erin Davoran laments the lack of time left to spend in the place she loves.
I need a time turner. I graduate in 80 days. Well, by publication time, 79. That means there are only 11 weekends left before commencement. Spring Break takes two, fests occupy four and Mom’s Weekend owns another. That leaves four weekends — the next two, Easter and the one between #Fest and graduation — to go anywhere or visit anyone outside of Athens. But I really don’t want to.
When I was a freshman, my sister was a senior at Miami. Instead of visiting OU for Sibs Weekend, she stayed in Oxford. I was disappointed at the time, but now I get it.
When you realize you have so few days left in a place you love so much, you don’t ever want to leave.
There normally comes a time or two each semester — whether it be due to exams or bad weather or whatever — when I just need a break from Athens. I just need to go to Cincinnati, cuddle with my dog and go to dinner with my parents. Or, there are friends’ birthdays or family parties I couldn’t imagine missing.
But now I find myself saying, “No thanks, I’m good.”
I want to stay in town and spend time with my college friends who are all going in different directions after graduation. I want to stay in my rented house and not think about moving out of it in less than three months. Like Rose does to Jack in Titanic, I want to pledge “I’ll never let go” to Athens, even though I know all too soon, I will have to let go. (Jack didn’t need to die, though. Even Kate Winslet agrees.)
Except unlike Rose choosing to let Jack’s lifeless body sink into the depths of the Atlantic Ocean, someone will have to force me to leave by prying my cold, dead hands from my friends or my house or my drink at The CI.
I don’t want to go anywhere or do anything outside of OU.
However, this is also problematic because when I graduate, I will only be returning to Cincinnati for a few weeks before starting a summer internship thousands of miles away.
So, as much as I don’t want to visit anyone or anywhere else now, I’m going to regret only having a small amount of time with my friends and family before I enter “adulthood” away from home.
That is why I need a time turner! Or that watch from that 2002 movie Clockstoppers with Jesse Bradford (the hot guy from Bring it On).
I need more weekends to visit my friends at their schools I haven’t made it to in four years. I need more free days in Athens to just be, without dealing with all the visitors who descend on our tiny town for the fests. I need a lighter schedule and a slower clock.
Now that I have so little time, I need so much more.
Erin Davoran is a senior studying journalism. Is this your last semester in Athens? Tweet her @erindavoran or email her at ed414911@ohio.edu.
