This is the Day: A Retrospective on Junior Year
Photo by Griffin Meyer, from Edinburgh, 2024!
“This is the day / Your life will surely change /
This is the day / When things fall into place”
Where did the time go? It feels like yesterday that I was coming back to campus after a long break (and semester).
Above are the lyrics of “This is the Day” by The The, a song I have been surgically attached to for about a year now. I first came across this song on a random day in sophomore year (via a club soccer playlist heard across the way), and I couldn’t get it out of my head –– only the trademark accordion riff. Little did I know that the Netflix show One Day would feature the song at the end of its first episode. (Guess where it’s set…Edinburgh!) It felt like the stars were aligning, but I didn’t know the reason why.
Yet, coming up on the end of junior year and the start of senior year, it couldn’t be more relevant. Soon, the days of Peirce and Chalmers pilgrimages will be in the past, frisbee tournaments will remain in my memory.
But let’s not dwell on that! This year has been a crazy one, split into two parts: abroad and at Kenyon. I had the immense pleasure of studying in Edinburgh, Scotland, and exploring the world, seeing locations I would never have gotten the chance to see. After the summer, I kept wondering about returning to campus, and whether I would always have to course-correct. With that, I feared missing out on important events at Kenyon, not seeing friends for a while, and, most of all, the adjustment of moving back to Gambier.
Studying abroad was a wonderfully transformative experience for me. That was a time when I was essentially starting from scratch, alone. Yet, “alone” has negative connotations that negate the benefits of solo adventures. So, “solo” is a better term! My main word of the semester was “wandering” –– I wandered everywhere, from the streets of Edinburgh, one of which was the Royal Mile, to Malta, Budapest, and other exciting locations.
Again, I was so lucky to have this experience and get to travel. There is something so exciting about exploring new places, seeing new things, and being away from everything. Of course, that last thing can only last so long, but while in it, boy, is it magical. I’ll never forget one day seeing the sunset at Edinburgh Castle- the purple and pink skies behind the hundred-of-years-old monument.
Being away from home in unfamiliar locations furthered this idea that my life will change and, eventually, fall into place. The day before coming back to Massachusetts was especially difficult because I had made a semblance of a “home” in Edinburgh: shops I would see every day on the way to class, endless sounds of bagpipes, and clubs I would frequent. Even then, I knew I would be shifting to a familiar home once again. Abroad felt like a television show where, in order to boost ratings, the writers place the characters in a new location and a new set of challenges. Second semester is the coming home, the return to all things familiar, with a different perspective.
This past semester, to summarize, has been a transitional one. They say “abroaditis” and “wanderlust” are very real things, and now I very much believe them. Daydreams of Scotland shadowed over me the first two months back at Kenyon. In efforts to “revert” back to myself before abroad, I tried to focus on school, but the efforts were futile. I had homesickness for a world I had known for a finite period (4 months). In my experience abroad, “homework” isn’t really a thing. Here, it felt so mundane and draining, despite the fact that I had grown used to the Kenyon workload for two years.
And now, nearing the end of classes, my junior year has been on multiple timelines, which I am unable to fully comprehend. Was I actually abroad? Did this semester actually happen, or was I off in my own world? It still doesn’t feel real. I recently completed an ultimate frisbee season with the men’s team Serf (join frisbee!). I have been a part of it since my first semester freshman year, and to say it has been great is the biggest understatement: I don’t know what I’d do without it. The other day, we sadly did not make it to the Nationals tournament, ending the season abruptly. I had been in a daze, all ready to go for more frisbee, but then it was over. And so, feelings came rushing back about the passage of time, with the knowledge that, yes, junior year is almost over. The final moments of the tournament felt like a culmination of sorts, saying goodbye to dear friends I have known for three years, and the indescribable passion we have for a sport where we throw a plastic disc back and forth.
As the band The The sings, “This is the day / your life will surely change.” So, I am pondering the reverberations of moving up to senior year, of the choices I made this year, and these fantastic experiences. They say that you will change each year, but pre-junior year Griffin is way different from post-junior year Griffin. I have seen the world, pondered a lot about the grand scheme of things, and have been trying to focus on the things that truly matter.
At the close of this year, it feels like both a culmination and an ellipsis. What’s next? I have no idea. However, I do know that things are falling into place.