As we quickly approach our last day of finals, what I’m finding myself longing for most are not the traditional spring events—from the Hudson Relays to Senior Week—but rather those ordinary days spent with friends. If it were any typical week on campus, my friends and I would’ve gone to Jolly Scholar karaoke on Thursday night. 

And although all my friends didn’t seem to have classes on Fridays, I did and I would’ve probably woken up with a little bit of regret from staying up so late the night before. I might have come home from class to my roommate making breakfast. I could go on and on.

I’m certainly sad to miss out on the last several weeks of my senior year. I was looking forward to the main week of Greek Games and spending Senior Week with friends before not seeing many of them indefinitely. Like many others, I was not prepared to move all of my belongings out at the end of spring break and say what goodbyes I could before leaving for home.

I’m not unique in that this past month has been hard on me. I’m not the only one missing things or who had to reschedule major life events. Hell, my brother had to reschedule his wedding. And I didn’t really realize until now the depth of what had been ripped away from me and everyone else.

The things that I’m going to remember about my time at CWRU include the things you’d suspect. From my first memories of moving in freshman year and meeting my roommate, declaring my major (third time’s the charm), and getting accepted into a summer research program. To the memories that dominate my later years at CWRU, going to conferences with other students, finally getting a job offer after months of searching and desperately trying to finish my capstone project.

While all of those things are certainly important and memorable, they will forever be overshadowed by all of the “small” things. Nothing that I mentioned will be as memorable to me as stopping by Nord to grab a bagel from Einstein’s or getting a samosa from the WISER table. When I look back, I’m going to think about sitting on my couch in the Village and watching my roommates play Just Dance, walking to class and even going up and down the Elephant Stairs my second year when I lived within the South Residential Village.

These are all little things, and that’s the point. The loss of these moments is what hurts the most for me. There will be more big events and CWRU will do its best to make Homecoming special for the class of 2020. But I will never be able to get back these ordinary moments on campus.

So when all of you, students who are not graduating this semester, return to campus, I’m asking you to not take these ordinary moments for granted. Of course, you should enjoy the big events as well. But make sure you appreciate the normalcy of campus life. As we know now more than ever, you never know when normal will be ripped away.