Saeed thinks through the end of her freshman year.
I’m no longer a freshman. Fuck.
How do I even begin to voice this dread? I’m haunted by the hollow pit of knowing that time actively slipped through my hands, and I find no prayer enough to spare me of my agony. It feels like I stepped into this new life only yesterday, yet already, I find myself called a second-year college student; am I the only one who feels far too young, far too raw, to use such a label without flinching? I’m supposed to curiously wander this campus, excited to learn and discover alongside the incoming class — not stand here as a supposed resource. I can’t help but agonize… What will my next years at Hopkins even look like? Will I find my education under the shadow of funding cuts and shifting policies? Will I find good company and support? Will I find myself?
On one end, I think, what have I even achieved so far? In typical unforgiving-Myra fashion, the answer often feels like nothing extraordinary. I wonder how long I can drift through life like this, swimming through a current I can’t escape, stuck without my permission. I was meant to be sharp, invincible, efficient — a pre-med student who somehow holds the world together in one hand and reaches for more with the other. However, in life’s typical, taunting fashion, meticulous control has proved to fail me time and time again…