BY FLETCHER WORTMANN

In print | Published December 4, 2008

It’s funny, but there have been times when I’ve felt like Swat would last forever. Even now I’m having difficulty accepting that the end is really here. But however I try to deny it the fact remains. In a few days classes will end and the dorms will empty. Hundreds of students will spread out like migrating geese, flying south and never returning, never again to attend Swarthmore as first-semester seniors, never again to walk these grounds until mid-to-late January or so. Yes, the Fall 2008 semester is almost over.

I admit that over the years I’ve had a lot of fun at Swarthmore’s expense. But now I’d like to pause and, using my incredible English major brain, reflect in insipid detail upon the profound emotional journey we’ve all taken together over the past three-to-four months. I can see it all still, perfectly, as if through a shot of cheap horrible vodka, or actually slightly less perfectly than that, like through a large pane of glass printed with thousands of tiny dots to prevent small birds from splattering against it. Yes, I look back at Swarthmore through a glass spotted, and by printed spots or those of sparrow brain it matters to me not.

I remember when I first arrived here, in late August, about three months ago. I was so much younger then. About three months younger. And I was so naïve! I spent meal points like they were post-WWI German currency and drank Odwalla smoothies like water. I printed lengthy seminar documents on single-sided paper, just because I could. I was reckless and stupid, and I didn’t understand that the good times had to end. But the weather got cold and the squirrels got fat and sassy, and they stopped playing Numa Numa at Paces and started playing the Numa Numa remix featuring Rihanna. I remember the hirsute horrors of Mustache November, a campus of reckless young men committing wanton crimes against fashion and against God. I remember attending the Halloween party in Sharples and noticing a lucha libre wrestler and a Disney princess emerge together disheveled from the conference room near the cereal bar, ensuring that I will feel sort of unclean every time I eat Kashi Heart to Heart for the rest of my life.

But the point is that I am indebted to you, Swarthmore, for the unforgettable memories and for the inerasable psychological scars. I look back from the bleak endless days of the Bush presidency to the glorious ascendant millennium of the Obama presidency-elect, and I am amazed at the scope of my personal growth. I was once a foolish, ambitious 21-year-old child; now I am a jaded, embittered 21-year-old man. I’ve changed so much since August, and I cannot imagine where I’d be now without Swarthmore, although if I had to, I’d imagine I’d probably have beaten “Metroid Prime 3” by now and maybe taken some classes at Tufts.

And as I look back, I can’t help but wonder what lies ahead. It’s like that guy from that movie says, the one with the prominent nose who totally bangs the hot mom: I’m a little worried about my immediate future for the next six weeks or so. The record store back home said they’d like me back for the holiday rush, but realistically, how long can I expect that to last? Two weeks? Three? I can’t work retail forever. I’d like to continue my education at some point, but I’m not even ready to think about that yet. And I want to do something meaningful with my winter break before I die, maybe write a novel, or cure a disease. I’m already 21 years old and I’m only getting older. I am a butterfly, emerged from its chrysalis and ready to take flight, but a butterfly born with angel wings, and a butterfly that cannot fly, because angel wings are very large and very heavy and the butterfly lacks sufficient upper-body strength to lift them because he hasn’t had time to go to the gym in like three weeks.

There are many things that I would like to say to you, but I don’t know how. All I can offer are a few parting words of counsel. Take them as you will. Enjoy each fall semester as if it were your last. Follow your instincts, your heart, your dreams, until these things become inconvenient and then abandon them without hesitation. Laugh! Love! Dance suggestively and drink excessively, because very soon it will no longer be socially acceptable for you to do these things! Live, goddamnit! And remember, when the lights go dim and the floor goes sticky, and the last ping-pong ball bobs in a glass of ashy beer, if nothing else, remember this: Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.

Fletcher is a senior. You can reach him at fwortma1@swarthmore.edu.

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