When this year started, I wasn’t sure I’d be ready to move on. As COVID tapered off, I felt like I wasn’t ready to return to seeing strangers in the flesh routinely. I also had more than little trepidation from the knowledge that the Cold War was back in force, and closer than ever to heating up. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to graduate by December, hell I wasn’t even sure I was ready to graduate. I had a better handle on my life, but I still felt like the old, inadequate me who flunked out years ago was still lurking, buried but not forgotten.

Didn’t matter though. I had too much invested to let myself collapse like before. More importantly, I had support, friends and family who cared about me, and I knew it this time. I dove into capstone courses, embraced the final stretch of my Informatics minor, and finally joined a goddamn student club—the anime club, of course. But it was pretty fun, going in once a week to watch anime that was mostly new to me. Sharing hobbies with people, that’s the real soul food.

I even managed to make it through my Spanish classes alive. I had lucked out for most of them, taking them purely online due to COVID. Mind you, when I say I lucked out it was because I could just use online tools to aid in my pursuit of a passing grade. The problem is when I hit the last class, we were back to in-person courses and I didn’t know shit. Mr. Rubio pulled me aside after our first exam, asking me ‘What happened?’ So I told him the truth. I had all online Spanish classes, they were easy because of the software, but I didn’t learn a thing. He and I came to an agreement: I’d try as hard as I could, and he’d consider where I started versus where I end up as a factor in grading.

I really did try; hell, I probably worked harder in his course than my internship. In the end, I got a C—the best C I ever earned. I was so afraid that one class would make me have to drag out my senior year for a whole semester, but once it was finished? I was done. Home free.

For the last few weeks of the semester, I didn’t have anything to do. No following semester to plan for, or paperwork to do. It was all submitted, and for the first time in my life I really had nothing I had to worry about, beyond the typical ‘oh god what comes next in life what do I do fuck-’. I hung out on campus, soaking up the ambience as much as I could. I’d spend nights in the computer science building, staying up late and working on tweaking my burgeoning portfolio, or chatting with friends both online and not. When the sun crept over the trees, I’d pack my bags and go back to my car. Usually I went home, but occasionally I’d sleep in it so I didn’t have to leave campus (as I had invested in on-campus parking for my final semester).

I hadn’t really taken advantage of the full college experience, and I knew it. I also knew that I couldn’t change that now, so the best thing I could do is just soak it in while it was still here. Regrets are a part of life, but I still had some time to live it up in my own quiet way. Though, my wallet probably hated me: eating on campus was a luxury whose cost did not live up to the benefit.