Lessons

It’s funny the things you can learn
where you least expect—

like how much you really hate philosophy
(3 am in the library finishing a term paper)
or how apparently group nudity is a stress reliever,
even if you, a bystander caught unawares,
are absolutely traumatized
(also the library, just a few hours earlier)

like realizing maybe
what you thought you’d wanted for your life
was not what you wanted after all
(after spending a semester conducting research for class and hating every minute of it)
or starting to understand
that it’s okay
to not have a plan
(after crying in your car because you don’t have one, and you’re terrified)

like sometimes the best of friends
were right in front of you
and you just didn’t notice
(while eating pancakes at ten o’clock on a Thursday night)
and sometimes
people you thought
would be the best of friends
drift away and you don’t know why
(and you don’t know exactly when it changed, but it did)

like how much you’re attracted
to this boy
and the way he moves
and the way he smiles at you
(across the room at a party)
and then how much you regret
being attracted to this boy
who doesn’t notice you
or at least, not in the way you want
(another party, when you went just to see him)

like sometimes you think
you just want to have fun
but really you just want to forget
(2 am in a bar)
and sometimes
being completely honest
about everything
with someone else
sets you free
(a fast food restaurant in a foreign country)

like how you’re never really sure you belong
but then you look back
and wonder why it was ever a question
(at the end of the road)
and when it’s all said and done
these are the days
and these are the people
that shaped you
and that you will always remember
(four years, in Chapel Hill)

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written May 16, 2018, following graduation and the end of undergrad