(Ok, maybe another post about lasts. But how was I going to get you to click on this if I said it was going to be like all the others? It’s not.)

From this side of spring break, graduation looks a lot closer. You can count the weekends left before we walk across the stage and receive our diplomas. The real world is so close to us now, we can see it vividly. More vividly for some than others, but it’s there, it’s real, and we’re hurtling full speed towards it.

It’s hard to describe what it feels like to be a senior in college until you’ve been there. So far, it hasn’t disappointed. It’s been everything I imagined it would be and more. There have been happy times, sad times, and more surprises than I counted on when I moved back to Columbia for my final year of college. For many of us, and including myself, it has been the strangest combination of excitement for the future and pain at losing the past. There are days you get up and you can’t wait to get the hell out. There are days you get up and you realize you can’t imagine leaving this place and these people. When you’re senior, there’s a lot of reflecting on what has happened and a lot of wondering at what will happen. But I have a new resolution, at least for these few weeks until I cross the threshold from student to alumni.

I promise to live in the present.

I promise to not let my apprehension over my future ruin the joy of what’s happening in my now. I promise not to let my sadness over what has passed interrupt the memories I am making now. I promise to enjoy discussions in my favorite class. I promise to laugh a little harder when surrounded by the people I love in a place I love. I promise to appreciate the friends and time I have left in the best ways we know how, whether it’s on the patio at Bengals or just sitting in our living room gossiping about anything and everything. I promise to stop counting my days by how many I have left.

I promise to live in the present.

Every important moment this year has been punctuated by its title of “last.” Our last home football game, our last visit to The Magic Tree, our last spring break – the list is so extensive and so detailed it’s enough to make anyone think we were counting down to doomsday. But we’ve been going about this all wrong. Last doesn’t mean it has to be bad. There have been too many great firsts I’ve experienced here and so many more to come that to live in a world of lasts is to ignore the bursts of firsts about to come our way.

I can’t wait to see my closest friends start the first job of their career. I can’t wait to see myself start the first day of law school. I can’t wait for the first time one of my sisters tells us she’s met the man she’s going to marry. I can’t wait for the first bachelorette party, the first wedding, the first little one to join our group. I can’t wait for the first time I move to a new city on my own or the first time I buy my own car or my own house. There are so many firsts to be excited for, I don’t think I have room for lasts.

So for now, I’m just going to live in the present. I’m going to smile at every warm day left between now and graduation, and probably, I’ll skip class and never look back. I’ll spend as much time with the people here as I can. We’ll start and finish the frat crawl we’ve been planning for four years. I’ll do homework outside the first apartment I’ve ever lived in. We’ll have Sunday Fundays, we’ll be stupid, and we’ll do it all again. I’m going to soak in every moment I have left in this city I’ve grown to call first and foremost, home.

If all good things come to an end, I’m going to make sure we make it as great as possible, because really that’s all we can do.

“Well, I hope you can look back one day and honestly say you did it to the fullest.” – J.Cosey