I have a fear of being cliché.
It’s the reason I was disappointed when “Napoleon Dynamite” became really popular, and it explains why my closet is not home to one of those “Save the Earth” or “Think Green” T-shirts they sell at department stores.
Even now, I’m wondering if “is home to” (from the last sentence) might not be a little trite.
So I wasn’t sure how to feel about writing one of these, “Wow! I’m already a senior!” columns.
One of those, in fact, combined with a kind of carpe diem theme, which appears repeatedly both in the Baker Orange and your British literature textbook.
I’m going to go ahead with it, though, and if you think you already know enough about day-seizing, I guess you may move on. The column below this looks promising.
Lately, I’ve been remembering things that happened my freshman year and am shocked to realize they happened freshman year.
It just doesn’t seem that long ago, and I realize that I have less than a year left at Baker, which probably means less than a year with these people and less than a year in this lifestyle.
When I’m thinking about friends and change and time, I think of this Billy Collins’ poem a friend read to me recently.
The last line (which unfortunately isn’t nearly as cool alone as in the context of the whole poem): “Time goes too fast; come home.”
I’ve thought about this a lot in the month since I heard it.
It’s a carpe diem poem, really. A “Gather ye Rosebuds while ye may” poem: the kind with flowers and beauty, love and time, bringer death and maggots. Time goes too fast, it says. Carpe diem!
But wait. These poems usually tell you to go out and do something – act now, live in the moment and to the fullest, because we don’t know what sort of future we have. Time, after all, goes too fast.
It’s a good sentiment for college students (especially those getting ready to graduate), because we often want to act and live and do and are at a point in our lives where we are able to do just that.
We’ll soon be out in the world, getting a job, getting married, going to China, having a kid. The world’s there for the exploration.
In Collins’ poem, though, the conclusion is different.
It’s not “Time goes too fast, go explore,” though I like that sentiment, too.
Does that mean, then, that the carpe diem interpretation is ruined by the conclusion, “come home”? I don’t think so.
Living life to the fullest, living a life that brings you happiness and love and joy and peace means, in part, enjoying your time with the people who bring you those things, the people at “home.” Simply spending time there is not a waste of time.
I’m not necessarily saying you need to get in your car immediately and go spend the weekend with your family.
Home for you might not be the place Baker has listed as your permanent address.
Home might be Baker or it might be somewhere – or something, or someone – else.
That’s something for me to remember while studying for my midterms and making plans for next year.
Time has gone fast, and I want to enjoy my time at Baker while I’m a student, my role as a daughter before I’m a parent.
So when you graduate and go out into the world – have fun! Explore! Take a risk and live life because it’s short.
But because it’s short, because time simply goes too fast: come home. It may be where you end up seizing the day.