One of these days you will write the next great coming-of-age tale, and it will end with the heroine standing alone on top of Foss Hill, looking out at the old brick buildings and the grass having just experienced some great epiphany. You don’t know yet how she gets there, what land mines of post-adolescent angst she will lurch through in order to wind up above it all, but you can see that final scene clearly and feel the light spring breeze against her face. And in that slow pan across Andrus Field, the old-fashioned lamps, the marble steps behind the library, she will remember all of the treks to the student center against the harsh January cold, the naps in the September sun, the drunken voyages to the parties of strangers at one in the morning, arm in arm with people who changed her in incredible, indelible ways. All of the regrets, the lessons are written into the dirt under her sandals, and they will be there long after she leaves this campus. And she will know, so vibrantly and fiercely know, that her life is just beginning and these four years have only been the prologue. Maybe that is the epiphany. You aren’t quite sure yet.
Ella Dawson 