Letter from the Editor 10.17.18

I'm done looking forward to things in life. And no I'm not in a state of existential despair. You don't need to text my mom, I'm doing fine thanks.

I want to live in the moment, in the present, and to write navel–gazing Letters from the Editor without fear of ridicule. But mostly, I want to stop viewing each week as a task to be conquered, and weekend as the light at the tunnel that will bring me overflowing happiness and mental fortitude. Sundays still make me feel sad anyways.

Forget Halloween. Thanksgiving? I don't know her. Winter break? Okay you got me there.

But truly, I think we all do ourselves a disservice when we focus on events on the horizon. I fell into this trap in the weeks leading up to fall break. I pushed friends aside, doubled down on schoolwork and applications, and generally didn't care for myself. I spent days at a time stumbling around campus like a zombie with especially heinous bedhead, fumbling through small talk and class discussions on auto–pilot. But dammit, I was leaving Philly soon! And who cares what came to pass between now and then.

It's healthy and normal to have things to look forward to, but I prefer not to treat those moments as benchmarks, or as incentives to make myself unhappy in the intervening time. Especially since our time at Penn is so finite, I think it's necessary that to see each day as a tiny entry into our undergraduate experience. You'll never get it back, y'all. And you're gonna wish you were completely lucid and coiffed in your normal day–to–day. At least that's my midsemester goal.

So do all those readings for class, get that smoothie (BYO cup, please don't use the styrofoam!), take the long walk home, and be spontaneous. Make last minute dinner plans on a weeknight. Don't always lock yourself up to work in the service of fun things on the horizon. The sum of Penn's smaller social niceties far outweigh those isolated bursts of release, I promise. 

College is best told in these in–betweens, and you can take my word for that.