I walked into this schoolyear knowing that I was entering into a mere one-year venture here at LSTC, and though I hoped I'd make friends (which I did) and hoped that the campus would feel somewhat like home (it does to some extent), I hadn't factored in for myself any wiggle-room for attachment.
This past Monday evening, after my last Systematic Theology class, I walked out, my brain completely unaware that this was different than any other evening, and feeling the joy of my first last class of the semester. I was in end-of-schoolyear mode without being in end-of-LSTC mode. And I ran into friends in the stairwell who were comparing their dates of departure from Hyde Park, and saying goodbyes, and it occurred to me that when my last class is over this afternoon, I am walking out of this place perhaps forever. I think that since I'm only done with my first year here, my brain was lulled into thinking that it was like being done with my first year of college or my first year at PTS - that I was saying partial (and temporary) goodbyes to most people, and some distant and regretful goodbyes to the seniors. But I'm not coming back in the fall. So I'm starting to try to figure out how to "grieve" leaving this place - how to say goodbye to people here and to the school. I haven't really had the opportunity to say a lot of goodbyes, so perhaps I'm just going to end up leaving here as casually as I came here, though that doesn't seem particularly emotionally intelligent.
I suppose that I just hadn't figured into my plan for this year any sort of attachment. And it's hard to know where to place my emotions about leaving. On one hand, I've been here, had my good times and bad times, gotten into a routine, made friends, had fun with my classmates, and because of all of this, I have a complete right to be sad about departing and to be sad about having to say so many goodbyes. On the other hand, I have not been here for the four-year cycle as all the seniors have been. So though we all are leaving here and need to say goodbye, I feel that I haven't spent enough time here to truly have sad emotions about leaving, at least not compared to the seniors who have completed their entire seminary career here.
I'm singing at graduation, which will be good. I will have my chance to say some goodbyes and give some hugs and take some pictures, and all of that will be extremely helpful. But it is weird to think that my junior and middler classmates are going to continue on next year without me. Everybody else who is going on internship between their middler and senior year (as is the usual order of things) gets to come back after their internship is over. And the juniors come back for another round of classes next year. I have no idea with which class I relate. I relate with the seniors because they're not coming back to LSTC, just like me. I related with the middlers because they are anticipating leaving here for internship, just like me. I related to the juniors because they are done with one year of class here, just like me.
This is all a very long-winded way of saying that I'm starting to get sad about leaving the LSTC community, because I've grown attached to people and things here, and that I haven't a clue as to how to say as many goodbyes as I need to. So if there are any LSTC readers out there, know that I am going to miss being away from this community, and that I hope that since my internship is reasonably close to Chicago, I'll be able to stop in every now and again, and that I have a new appreciation for things like Facebook, where I can keep up with what everyone is up to as they continue their seminary, internship, and first call journeys.
As for me, to Rockford I go starting July 1. Hopefully I'll get to hang out with some of my LSTC friends during my quiet June, and once I'm settled into things in Rockford, I'd of course love visitors. :)
Goodbyes are hard. Does anyone actually get better at them as time goes by?
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