Accepting uncertainty and living with the unknown
When I was a graduating senior at Penn State, I got to write a senior column for our college newspaper, The Daily Collegian. It was a blank slate, whatever I wanted to write. With all the emotions that go along with senior year and leaving the place I came to call home, I decided to write about change and the unknown.
Now, more than ever, college seniors and everyone is living in this place of “unknown.” I wanted to republish this article in hopes it lifts some spirits and reinforces what we’ve all been hearing - we will get through this and we will be OK.
Shout out to all you college and high school seniors. You’ll get through this and we are all cheering for you.
(The article below was originally published on April 22, 2016 in The Daily Collegian. Find the original article here.)
Senior Column By: Taylor Clayton
What if.
Up until the moment I started writing this column, I didn’t like those words. When I started here at Penn State, I had a long list of “what ifs.” They were the typical worries of a college freshman: figuring out how college classes work compared to high school, awkwardly trying to make as many friends as possible and struggling to not look like a lost freshman at all hours of the day.
I was a lost freshman—a lost sophomore, a lost junior and now more than ever a very lost senior, but looking back, all those “what ifs” seemed to work out. During my freshman year, I had a hard time creating a life away from my family. To be clear, they were only “outside of Pittsburgh” about a two-hour drive away and they came up to tailgate for nearly every football game.
My dad would send me cards every once in a while that made me tear up at my desk in my dorm and my mom was always “just wondering” when my next visit home would be. The summer after freshman year, my dad gave a graduation speech at the college where he works—Douglas Education Center—and he ended his speech with “never forget where you came from.” Before the speech, my dad asked me to tune in online and listen. I think that line was why he wanted me to listen.
My family did not only watch me grow, but grew with me through my years at Penn State. They stepped back and let me find a new place to call home. They’ve been talking me through my “what ifs” since I set foot on campus. I have never forgotten where I came from and as I graduate from Penn State, I will never forget the part of me that has come from Happy Valley.
The big “what if” that first year for me was making friends. Four years later, and I can say the friends I met that year and over the next two years are the reason I’m confident enough to be writing this column. They made all the long lines at Chipotle go by a bit faster, all the cold, long walks through campus and downtown seem a bit warmer and all the days wasted watching movies or sitting outside on porches feel like they weren’t wasted at all.
Of all the things I’ve learned at Penn State, it’s the friends I’ve made that have taught me the most. They make my “what ifs” seem not so big and not so scary by becoming a constant in my life and helping me embrace the uncertainty. My Penn State family is moving on to the next set of life’s “what ifs.” There’s a Marine in California, an Army-man to-be in Georgia, a healthcare analyst and her cat in Boston, a guitar-playing chef in New Orleans, an artist turned advertiser in Buffalo and a busy little lighting designer taking on New York.
And there’s many, many more still here in the Happy Valley bubble figuring out what’s next.
I don’t know what comes next. And when I do, I won’t know what comes after that. My life will always have its “what ifs,” but that’s the point.
