At some point during commencement I looked around and found myself in a sea of engineering school graduates. Uniform in our mortarboards and plastic-bottle gowns and orange stoles, we stood and cheered as our degrees were conferred. For just a moment the past four years vanished. I couldn’t remember spacecraft dynamics or structural analysis or compressible flow; study sessions and exams and rocket engine tests were the furthest thing from my mind. At that moment I was fifteen years old with no idea what I’d do and I looked around and thought, engineering? Me?
Yet there I was. Somewhere along the line I found what I was doing and I loved it. Somewhere along the line I found people to love and people who loved me.
Somewhere along the line Austin became home.
At this point I have a well-established ritual for leaving home. I’ve had nine addresses in college and all of them held that title. Before I leave I say my goodbyes, take a walk around, let my fingers twirl in the air, let my footsteps linger. I go alone, and on the train, plane, bus, or drive, I listen to the playlist I made for that season. I’ll make a new one when I get home. I go through pictures. I create.
Now I drive through campus one last time. Not just for nostalgia— it’s on my way. “Goodbye, freshman dorm,” I say, remembering chai lattes from the downstairs Starbucks and the day I came upstairs to find my friends laughing on the floor of the hallway, umbrellas all open for some forgotten reason. Dining hall food and the smell of everyone’s laundry detergent and frigid air conditioning and my freshman roommate’s rug. “Goodbye, tower. Goodbye, health center. Goodbye, aerospace building.”
I once read that four things are needed for closure in a goodbye: I love you, I’m sorry, I forgive you, I thank you. I say this on my drive now— UT, I love you. I’m sorry for the ways I failed to appreciate the gift it is to be here, for the friendships I failed to care for, for the years I missed out on when I was going my own way. I forgive you for the stress, for not counting that one elective I took abroad, for the expectations that weren’t met. I thank you for the ones that were exceeded, for the friends I made, for the education I received, for the care you gave me. I thank you for the tower glowing orange and the bells every evening, for the eerie ghost town you were during covid and the vibrancy you held once we came back. I thank you for the hard times, for the classes I didn’t think I’d get through, for the friends and teachers who made sure I did. I thank you for giving me my best friends. I thank you for these last few days of celebration.
And in the fanfare and fireworks finale, in the wrapping up and moving on, I find that I always had exactly what I needed. I was always right where I was meant to be.
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