Illustration by Katharine Li
I stepped onto campus in late August of last year and, immediately, I knew how much I was going to miss this place — this brick-building, green-grass campus in sleepy, small-town Connecticut that I’ve come to call home. Like everyone else in my form, I couldn’t believe that in less than nine months, my time at Choate would be coming to a close.
Most people I knew seemed ecstatic — we were only a year, a term, a month away from graduation. We were excited, but we also knew that we were going to spend the next year figuring out how to say goodbye to the place and the people I love most.
I understand that many people may find this feeling of reluctance to leave Choate alien, because sometimes Choate can be the worst place in the world. You might be buried under a mountain of work, not able to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and all you want to do is to pack up your bags and go home because you don’t know how much more of this school you can endure.
Trust me, I’ve been there. I’ve felt homesick. I’ve felt lonely. I’ve been stressed. I’ve been sleep-deprived. I’ve had to haul myself out of bed at 7:45 a.m. for a first-period class I only barely endured.
But despite those moments, I can’t help but love Choate. I can’t help but love being surrounded by this exact group of people almost every day. I can’t help but love waking up and going to class with intelligent, interesting people who never cease to inspire me. I can’t help but love being with friends that I am lucky to have found. And I have never loved this school more than I have in my last few weeks. Every day I find myself wanting a little more time, just a few more days, because I know that we will never be able to repeat our time here again.
I think we knew coming in that our lives on this campus were going to be constantly changing, that there was only so much time before everything would become irreversibly different. Yet, this realization hasn’t made the last few weeks easier. All I can think about is never. Never again will I bemoan the lack of a Conference period on Thursday. Never again will I make the passing period trek from Humanities to some godforsaken remote area on campus. Never again will I have a D-block class (or any other block, for that matter). Never again will I stare out at the pond from the Science Center bridge just as the sun is coming down and think how fortunate I am to have ended up here. I know that I’m unprepared for how much I will miss these moments, however small, and even more unprepared for the inevitable day when I don’t — or, at least, not as much as I do now.
When I first applied to boarding school, comparisons — too many to count — were made to Hogwarts. People joked that I was supposed to pack up my trunk, grab my broomstick and my owl, and head off to a prep school in a faraway land, with less magic, perhaps, and more bookwork. The wisecrackers were wrong: Choate is magical, in more ways that I can possibly describe. Through some wizardry, Choate has transformed me into a better student and a better person.
When I first stepped onto campus, at the beginning of my sophomore year, I thought I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I was going to take a specific set of courses, join a specific set of clubs, and be a specific type of person.
But as I opened different doors and encountered different perspectives, I found myself becoming interested in unexpected subjects. I became passionate about issues that I hadn’t given a second glance before Choate. I ended up having meaningful friendships with people I barely talked to my first year. I learned to think, to question, to confront, to emphasize, and to demand what I believe will make the people and the places I love better. To be sure, I am leaving Choate more uncertain than I have ever been, but, for the first time, I am comfortable knowing that I have no idea where my life will take me.
Perhaps this is what I love most about this school: the infinite possibilities that await students if they open themselves to uncertainty. I think this what the Choate experience should be all about — finding yourself and finding meaning in your experience.
Don’t forget this, because one day, you will be only a few days from your own graduation, and as hard as it might be to believe, similar emotions will hit you in the gut.
You are going to wish that you had more time, so live the experience, learn from your successes and your failures, and be grateful for the journey, because, if you let it, it will take you on a better, more productive, more inspiring, more enlightening path than the one you imagined.
So here’s to Choate: to its magic, its wonder, its beauty, its people, its lunacy, its frustrations, its memories. As I enter the final days of my senior year, I only have one thing left to say: thank you.
