The Cavalier Daily
Serving the University Community Since 1890

Treasure adventure, remember routines

I HAVE been writing this column for three days, and still it remains unfinished. It's funny -- I'm never at a loss for words. And yet, here I am, staring at this screen and wishing I was doing anything but writing my last column. Maybe because I have too much to say. Maybe because I know most of it can't be put into words. Maybe because I'm not ready to let go.

For three and a half years, column writing has been part of my routine. During the majority of that time, I've written a column every week. I've sat down in front of my computer and watched my words take shape on the screen, felt my thoughts coalesce into a single argument -- at worst almost coherant, at best persuasive. Even when I wasn't writing weekly, I was regularly involved in producing a page of other people's opinions. That time was even more rooted in routine; it seemed I scheduled everything in my life around the hours I had to spend at the paper.

There are so many reasons why The Cavalier Daily has seemed the part of my U.Va. experience most difficult to relinquish. But perhaps the most significant reason is that it has been such a concrete, stable force in these four years. No matter what else changed, I could count on picking up the paper every week and knowing I'd had something to do with its production. If nothing else, this awful experience of writing my last column has told me something about the importance of certainty in my life.

I can talk a good game about independence, challenge and adventure, but when it comes down to it, I thrive on stability. In my four years here, there are things I've come to depend on. I will always finish eating before Christine does. There will never be parking spaces on Brandon Avenue. Newcomb will always serve chicken on Sunday night. Mary Katherine's ponytail will never be straight. I will always bite my nails compulsively and drink at least two Diet Cokes while I write my column.

It's these kinds of things that make college life deliciously comfortable. When I find myself stressed over 10- page papers, I remind myself that they always have come together at the last minute. No matter how many times I take a break to gossip with my roommates or watch MTV, it will get done, because it always does. By this semester, I've felt that no college-related crisis could arise that I couldn't handle. There's security in knowing that I've been through it all before.

That's the real reason why that ubiquitous question, "What are you doing next year?" terrifies me. It is odd and unsettling not to be able to visualize myself after graduation. Not to know where I'll be, what I'll be doing, what I'll eat on Sunday nights. All these things that have been so utterly dependable for four years soon will be gone, and I'll be left guessing, imagining how my life will take shape. These are the thoughts that keep me awake at night, that make me want to chain myself to my usual Alderman carrel and refuse to leave.

But then, as I sift through the most precious memories of my college life, I notice that most of them symbolize a break with routine. There's the time my girlfriends and I decided to ditch the boys and our usual weekend entertainment and have a girls-only slumber party. The night my roommate and I impulsively skipped class to gossip over coffee for two hours. The time I dropped everything to go to St. Louis to cover an election. The surreality of reading days, road trips and Cavalier Daily elections. Those memories stand out with sharp edges against the backdrop of a soothing pattern. I remember them, I'm changed by them because they opposed my comfortable habits.

Even my routine, I now realize, represents some kind of change in my life. My tenure at The Cavalier Daily came about only when I realized I couldn't make a life here out of singing, as I had in high school. Many of my new friendships sprung from the fading of old ones. And, of course, the whole of my life at the University of Virginia required the uprooting of my life in my hometown.

As pleasant and secure as my routines are, I know that I can't build a life out of them alone. I need the breaks, the surprises, the chances, the changes. Some of them may lead to new routines; some of them may simply provide a breath of adventure. All of them will teach me and enrich me.

So, with that in mind, the time now comes for me to take a deep breath and write my last words for this newspaper. I'm as scared as I was the day I wrote my first. But look where they brought me.

(Katie Dodd's column appeared Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. She was an associate editor and Opinion editor.)

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