fleeting.

i've spent the past 5 years, more or less, in a mountain town, filling my days with mind-numbing lectures, real-life intellectual experiences, and more inebriation than i care to own up to.

i'm a college student. a statement i will only be able to make for 5 more days, and it pains me to have just counted those days on one hand.

i am a college student. such a simple statement that on the outside, could never embody the unmatchable feeling the phrase truly ignites in me. instantly a montage of memories plays on the backscreen in my mind, flashes of faces, dancing, tears, hugs, hello's and goodbye's, music. significance. saturday it will be embodied in a square hat and long gown, a smile, an embrace from family, and then, somehow silence.

i remember the notes i jotted down to myself as i rode out of my small town, on my way to move in freshman year. they were approximately:

my last coffee was from mcdonald's? the last time i rode on my favorite road, my favorite curve, i was sending a text message? what is this reality?

i remember how fleeting each mile felt. i remember how exhilarating the unknown future felt, but how that exhilaration filled me with discomfort.

looking back, it was my own naivete that scared me. now i realize just how to cherish all of that significance rather than deal with the frustration of its elusiveness.

we started a mini tradition the past few days... each time one of my roommates was officially 'done' with the year, or in some cases, their college career, we pop a bottle of champagne. we stand around and toast to the one finished, to the year we've had, to the impenetrable bonds we've made, to which a meager bubbly does no justice. we sip.

today one of my roomates was leaving. although she will be returning to celebrate our graduation, the small hiatus signified a bigger end. we sat on the yellow kitchen coutners, glasses in hand, and spontaneously and unashamedly reminisced. we shared laughs with each story, of spring break misadventures and snow day shenanigans to say the least. we attempted again to piece together nights that had been marginally misplaced, while sharing tears recounting memories that were too real, too tangible to revisit just yet.

we sat on the counters as we had so many times before. we sat this time as 3 women who had come to know each other inside and out, to recognize each hair on our bathroom floor as well as every reaction, every feeling, every determinable neurosis that we shared to our souls. we came as near strangers and leave as near lovers, our shadows and footprints behind us and our indeterminable futures before us. and the confidence that if we did anything, we came and we loved and we did it with no abandon. and no regrets.