I’m very much struggling with how to say goodbye to a place where I have spent my last four years.

In comparison, saying goodbye to the people that I met here will be easy. They’ll say goodbye back. We can hug. We can text the second we get home from walking across the stage at graduation. We’ll have lunch dates and video chats.

But I am so stuck on how to say goodbye to this place. Having no plans for grad school in the foreseeable future means that I will sit in my last class this Friday. I am a learner at heart, and my identity for the past 17 years has been very much tied up in school and how I perform in it.

So I guess I’m trying to say goodbye not so much to Iona, but the person who I was while I was here.

It explains why I’m having some trouble.

Here’s where I’m at now: being a senior in the last stretch of the school year feels so (your choice of explicative here) good.

There’s fear, sure, of the unknown and the incoming ‘real life. But that stuff is just as exciting as it is terrifying. We’re off on adventures, guys!

There’s sadness at leaving your friends to go your separate ways. But I cannot explain the depth of the pride in my chest that I feel when I think of the great things my friends are setting off to do. I get to watch them do things they love and cheer them on from afar!

But most of all, there’s a lot of relief.

I cried on my train heading back to school from Easter break because I realized my heart had not been this full in a long, long time. I’m finding that as I check off responsibilities, write the last essays I’ll ever write, sit down to edit the last articles of The Ionian I’ll ever edit, everything feels so much lighter. I feel so much lighter.

I can’t sit here and pretend college was nothing but roses. I mean, I’ve been using The Ionian’s opinion pages for the past three years like some people use diaries. You shouldn’t lie to diaries.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s also been great. I’ve been lucky, I’ve worked hard and Iona has provided me with so many opportunities – getting to work on The Ionian’s editorial staff has been something I never could have dreamed before I arrived on campus. But to sit here and say my goodbyes with, “I did this awesome thing!” or “I had this awesome experience!” feels disingenuous, especially considering how I am working to live my life going forward.

I let my college experience become a rat race. I didn’t feel successful if I didn’t feel stressed.

I was always worried about finishing the next thing so I could get the next thing after that – you know, honors classes in middle school so you can do AP in high school while balancing extra-curriculars so you can get money to go to a good school so you can get good internships so you can get a good job.

It’s not like I didn’t know I was running in an inane circle; I hit burnout hard my sophomore year. That’s just ridiculous.

It’s easy to see, my perfectionism, but hard to stop. Because perfectionism tells you that if you do stop, if you do let go, even just a little, then you won’t be able to get those things that you are supposed to get, that you have to get.

I’d leave assignments to the very last minute because the fear of not doing something well enough (read: perfect) kept me from even starting. I lived a lot of my four years here trapped in my head.

So my response eventually became not to think of me at all.

As a result, I’ve done a lot of growing, unchecked and unwatched these last four years. It was easier to deal with the demands I was putting on myself if I focused more on doing and less on thinking.

But now as the weight of the past four years, the past 17 years, lifts from my shoulders, I’m starting to do some inward reflecting. It’s time to see exactly how I’ve grown, figure out who I have become and who I am outside of this whole school thing.

To start, I’m going to do a little pruning and try my hardest to step out of my perfectionism. I’m going to work on my mindfulness skills and focus on right now rather than the “next thing” society says I need.

I recognize that it would be so easy to continue this rat race into my life as a working woman. Honestly, I am scared beyond belief that I will.

Rather than letting this fear consume me, like it has done so many times before, I’m choosing to look forward to rebuilding myself. I’m going to get to know myself again.

I can’t walk away from the Ionian before briefly saying thank you to all the people who were perfect when I wasn’t: thank you to my wonderful editorial board and staff – the work you put into this paper makes me proud. Thank you to our advisors, Professor Bard and Kristin Yanniello, who always have our backs. Thank you to my roommate Jacqui, who never minded when I came back late after a deadline. Then, the hugest of thank yous to my mom, dad, brother, sister, Aunt Tara, Uncle Mike and other family members who were my hugest fans and biggest supporters throughout my four years here. I love you.