HALEY F.
Photography by Emma Joseph
If you’re reading this, know that today is a gift.
Before reading, Haley’s letter discusses an experience of gun violence. If you think that reading this will be triggering for you, we encourage you to take a pause before reading this letter, center yourself, and prepare any resources you may need to access after reading it. If you’d rather not read this letter, we encourage you to read a letter on a different topic.
Coming to terms with being a college senior has prompted me to carve out pockets of time to reflect on all that has led to this current, unfinished version of me. More often than not, I venture back, past my freshman year of college, living in Angelou, to my first few weeks of my senior year of high school. Practically a new student, having transferred to the school my junior year of high school and spending that year online while the pandemic warped the outside world, I found my extroverted self thrilled by the idea of embracing everything that I believed a senior year of high school should be.
Carpooling with my friends (something I always thought was so high school, ever since watching Love, Simon). Dancing on the sidelines with my team at football games with a packed student section. Writing for the school newspaper. Going to the prom!
But just over two weeks into the academic year, all of that fell away. I lay under a plastic chair in my new school’s auditorium, holding my new friend Meg’s hand, and squeezing my eyes shut. The sounds of screaming and running that surrounded us were drowned out by my own haunting thoughts—a deep nostalgia for my unfinished life that ached in places I didn’t know existed. I was suddenly aware of everything I had never experienced, and in that moment, I feared I never would. Falling in love, learning to surf, going to college, and watching my sister grow up. I recall clinging to gratitude and the relief I felt in having texted my family to tell them I loved them. This feeling, one of utmost fragility, has stayed with me forever.
The weeks and months after September 1, after the tragic loss of a classmate due to gun violence, are difficult to describe. Properly honoring and mourning as a community was my utmost priority, but in my own mind, I was grappling with fear and anxiety that often paralyzed me. My day-to-day, which had resumed to “normal,” had become laced with moments of impending doom—classrooms and hallways felt eerily vulnerable, and every loud noise made my stomach drop. I started struggling with test-taking and losing confidence in myself academically, challenges that I have continued to navigate ever since. In another sense, I felt more alive than ever, as though that day had woken me up and reminded me that my life was mine to maximize—I decided to dedicate myself to living more fully than ever.
Four years later, I’ve learned to surf, experienced more love than I ever thought possible, lived for a time in Venice, Italy, and let every season of life shape me—revealing something new about who I am and how I see the world. I have learned that I pride myself on being spontaneous, outgoing, present, and an utter romantic, never wanting to miss the beauty of an experience.
And then, all of a sudden, I’m in a car and I’m not the one driving, on a flight alone, at a crowded concert. I’m taking an exam, waiting to hear back about a dance audition, or preparing for a long drive by myself. The gravity of my lack of control in moments like these begins to weigh on me, and I begin fearing what’s uncertain. The memory of fragility, one that usually brightens my life by prompting me to hug my mom once more, to FaceTime my grandparents, and to tell my friends I love them at the end of every phone call, sends my mind into overprotective mode, and I anticipate the worst. The resulting state of anxiety removes me from the present moment in an often crippling way.
In times like these, I go to my dad, the man who taught me emotional vulnerability and whom all my friends say should have been a therapist. No matter the scale of the uneasiness I’m feeling, he always tells me to “never anticipate the bad.” Easier said than done, I know. Still, in this phase of life, where nothing is constant but change, it is normal to fear what we don’t know: the future. In college, we’re all learning to cope with shifting conditions that can leave us feeling unmoored—moving dorms as soon as we finally feel at home in the spaces we’ve created, returning to childhood bedrooms that feel a little less like our own, and adjusting to new versions of ourselves every semester. Yet no matter how shaky your foundation feels right now, you are still finding your way. Worrying about what’s ahead doesn’t protect you; it only steals from the moment you’re in. The future will unfold whether or not we fear it, and meeting it with the quiet confidence that you’re doing your best is more than enough.
My dad also reminds me that every experience is a good experience, a gift, because the alternative is not experiencing at all. We live for the experience of being alive—the moments that ground us, test us, and remind us how delicate it all is. I’m still learning that fragility doesn’t have to be feared, especially in a world where tragedy is broadcast on every medium. That, instead, to understand how fleeting each moment is is a gift in itself, one that prompts us to revel in and romanticize each day with intention. This feeling doesn’t need to consume you, but allow it to be a gentle reminder of the privilege that is living.
Every high and low, every uncertainty, carries something worth feeling, something worth learning. So, no matter what comes your way, in every phase of life, let it move you, change you, and remind you that you are so very alive.
Sincerely,
Haley F., Wake Forest University
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