Farewell Hollins Home

Exactly twelve hours ago, I graduated summa cum laude, second in my class, from Hollins University, a place which has held my heart since the age of thirteen.  The ceremony was the culmination of four years of so much work that it makes me tired just thinking about it all--classes, study abroad, work and internships and personal projects, all contained within the metaphorical walls of a very sheltering place.  Hollins is a small women’s college, and it becomes home to those who spend any more than a week there.  The people there are open-minded and bright-hearted, and the women who are grown there truly do become sisters to one another.

I have so many lovely memories of that place.  In the past week, everything I looked at was something precious, because something special happened there.  My roommate of four years and I lived in three of the dormitories and made fun of the others.  I worked in the library, took classes in Pleasants, Turner, Dana, and the VAC, and practically lived in the music building.  We were constantly criticizing the food in the dining hall.  More than just the buildings, though, were the little things, the random memories that I prize most of all.  Jumping atop the three-foot wall outside the dining hall to play tightrope, talking about climbing the old silo, hiding in the secret entrance to the music hall to cry alone at midnight…  These memories, these things that I saw every day, are the mark of a place which was my home, one that I deeply love.

But today it was different.  Today, as I was making my final walk out to the car, I looked around and I saw just a place.  A beautiful place, of course, with the classic brick buildings, smooth curving walks and brilliant green grass and trees everywhere.  But just a place.  For those few moments, I looked at Hollins and I saw it as I did at age thirteen, when I first came onto campus—a strange, lovely school with a great deal of potential.  And I realized that Hollins doesn’t belong to me anymore.  Or better, I don’t belong to it.

It was a strangely reassuring concept, proving that I am ready to move on to greater things.  I will always find a home at Hollins, but it will not hold me back from the life I build on my own.  The wonderful things about Hollins were never in the walks or the ways, but in the people I met and the changes they made in me.  And those things, I take with me.  So I am not afraid or sad to leave my magnificent school behind me.  What I gave to it will remain, and what it gave to me will give me strength and courage wherever I go.  That is a gift beyond price.