You spend four years counting down the hours, minutes and seconds until you can escape.

Not in a dramatic way, no chalkboard tally marks or existential dread—in quiet, habitual subtraction. One less midterm season. One fewer winter storm. One more class crossed off Stellic. You build your life around the idea of leaving: bigger things, better things, next things.

You get good at detaching in advance. You skip a few events because you honestly just don’t want to go. You don’t learn the names of underclassmen in your clubs because you won’t be here long enough for it to matter. You walk past places that meant something once, telling yourself you’ve already outgrown them.

And then, in the last week, something shifted.

It’s not dramatic. It’s small at first. A conversation after class that lingers longer than it should. A laugh that feels too familiar. You notice how the light hits the church on the quad you’ve walked past a hundred times and, for the first time, it feels specific … like it belongs to you.

You realize you know the rhythm of this campus. The exact timing of doors that stick. Which coffee tastes better at 8 a.m. versus 2 p.m. The shortcut across University Hospitals. The people no longer need explanations.

You start seeing everything as if it’s already gone.

The library isn’t just where you studied; it’s where you became someone who could. The late nights weren’t just stress and sleep deprivation; they were proof that you cared enough to try. Even the things you complained about—the meetings, the chaos, the endless cycle of doing and redoing—they were structure. They were community. They were yours.

And all of a sudden, leaving doesn’t feel like winning. It feels like losing something you didn’t realize you were still holding onto.

You look at your friends and realize there was no moment you decided they mattered this much. It just … happened. Slowly, then all at once. And now they exist in a future that doesn’t include this version of you, or this version of them.

You start wishing for more time, but not in a vague way. Specifically. You want one more ordinary Tuesday. One more night that doesn’t feel like “the last.” One more conversation where you don’t measure your words against the fact that they’re almost final.

Worst case scenario isn’t failing out or not knowing what’s next.

It’s realizing, too late, that you built a life here while pretending you were just passing through.