As I write, Franklin, the apartment cat, is fast asleep on my bed. His eyes are squeezed shut and he looks to be dreaming. I don't think he has any idea of what's about to hit him.
In a few weeks, Franklin and I will move out to central Pennsylvania, I to work as a reporter, he to sleep on a new bed. I think it's going to be pretty traumatic for the poor animal. With the exception of a few months as a kitten, he's spent nearly his entire life in this Pine Street apartment. I think he likes it here. With six people in the apartment, plus the two downstairs who essentially live here, there's always someone to give him a little extra food or a scratch on the nose. Come June, he'll have to rely on me for everything, and he might get pretty lonely.
Yes, I think Franklin will miss this place.
He's not the only one.
Just as there's always someone to give Franklin some cat food and a little attention, I can always find someone for the human equivalents: cooking pasta at 2 a.m., watching dumb television shows, venting about problems with work or family, holding yet another abortion debate that's guaranteed not to change anyone's mind.
Here's where the cat metaphor ends, though. Franklin's world is limited to this apartment, but mine is not, and I'm going to miss a lot more than what's within these walls.
I'll miss looking up at College Hall on a cloudless day; it's the view that always made me want to be a tour guide.
I'll miss the truly amazing classes I've taken here and the professors who have taught me more than just academics.
I'll miss the windowless, airless building at 4015 Walnut Street and the incredible crop of people who work ridiculous hours there to put out one of the best college papers in the country. They are my teachers, my students, my colleagues, my friends.
Yes, I will miss Penn terribly. Unlike Franklin, I haven't spent my entire life here, but sometimes it feels that way. Since coming to Penn, I've done so much: I've started a career in journalism, I've made wonderful friends, I've fallen in love and I've learned a lot about myself. It's been a pretty full four years,
and it can often feel like a lifetime.
But really, it hasn't been a lifetime. If it was, that would mean it began with freshman move-in and ends with Commencement. It would mean this lifetime is over, and with it, everything I have learned and gained and taken from my time here at Penn. And that's just not the case.
My reporting career, for instance, is just beginning. I won't be trekking up the stairs of the DP building anymore, but I'll be using everything I've learned there as I become a professional journalist.
The friendships aren't ending, either. I won't be in the same city as these people anymore, which will surely change the dynamics of our relationships. But I know we'll be in touch by e-mail and phone, and it's really quite a pleasant drive through some beautiful countryside to reach Philly or New York, where some of them will be. More importantly, what they've given me cannot ever be erased by time or distance.
As for my boyfriend, we'll still be together. Our relationship won't be quite the same when we leave Penn, but it will still be there, rock-solid, just relocated to central Pennsylvania.
And clearly, I will carry the results of my self-discovery beyond the bounds of this campus. I have become a different, more mature person in the past four years, and that will inform everything I do and everything I am from now on.
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The apartment I'm hoping to land out in central Pennsylvania is pretty Franklin-friendly. It has lots of places for a cat to hide, and it's right across the street from a park where he can sit in the sun and eat grass. If I wind up getting the place, I think he'll end up adjusting just fine.
He's not the only one.
Caryn Tamber is a 2003 College graduate from Plainview, N.Y., and former city news editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian.
