I’m no longer a freshman. Fuck.
How do I even begin to voice this dread? I’m haunted by the hollow pit of knowing that time actively slipped through my hands, and I find no prayer enough to spare me of my agony. It feels like I stepped into this new life only yesterday, yet already, I find myself called a second-year college student; am I the only one who feels far too young, far too raw, to use such a label without flinching? I’m supposed to curiously wander this campus, excited to learn and discover alongside the incoming class — not stand here as a supposed resource. I can’t help but agonize… What will my next years at Hopkins even look like? Will I find my education under the shadow of funding cuts and shifting policies? Will I find good company and support? Will I find myself?
On one end, I think, what have I even achieved so far? In typical unforgiving-Myra fashion, the answer often feels like nothing extraordinary. I wonder how long I can drift through life like this, swimming through a current I can’t escape, stuck without my permission. I was meant to be sharp, invincible, efficient — a pre-med student who somehow holds the world together in one hand and reaches for more with the other. However, in life’s typical, taunting fashion, meticulous control has proved to fail me time and time again.
On the other end, I quietly acknowledge the aching pains of growing into a new spirit. I struggled through violent seasons of trying to master every component of life, controlling what I ate, learned, moved, spoke, only to find myself weak and desperate for a gentle life. I have swung between the extremes of ruthless discipline and reckless abandon while trying to balance academics, extracurriculars and social relations, barely scraping by with the strength to write these words.
In also typical optimistic-Myra fashion, I refuse to let my memory of my first year at Hopkins remain a catalog of struggle and fear. Hidden in those slow, unglamorous days laid the grand freshman year revelation: moments of little "achievement" often birth the greatest growth. I’ve satiated my desire for knowledge, understanding the molecules that keep my heart beating and the roots of the radical political movements gripping my homeland. I have found friendship in the unlikeliest people, in shared jokes during midnight study sessions, long walks back from the library under an indifferent sky. I have learned that, sometimes, kindred spirits recognize each other not through shared majors or career ambitions, but in the quieter things: a shared heritage, a love for tea, an unspoken understanding of homesickness. And, of course, my time as a News Editor for The News-Letter has pushed me into the thick of my University’s everlasting story — the ugly truth, the powerful activism and the connected community.
Freshman year has been all but kind, but its brutal humblings have mercilessly shown me that growth also occurs through long, stumbling walks in the dark. I can only hope my next three years bring me relatively less discomfort and pass by a touch slower.
A part of me — the rational soul — knows that this is how life must be: Time flies, beauty fades and it is our responsibility to greet all of life’s complexity with open arms. More importantly, life is not an optimization problem; we don’t live to achieve perfection in every waking moment. After all, how can we control and make sense of something far too large and messy to even experience completely? But another part of me still fights against this pressing truth — the small, wild voice that panics at inevitable changes and flashes of time passing, that warns me of not achieving enough in whatever arbitrary time my mind assigns.
I wonder if that voice will ever go away. For now, she sits beside me as I drink tea. And maybe, just maybe, I will learn not to fear her, but to walk with her, hand in hand, into whatever comes next. She needs more kindness.
Myra Saeed is a freshman from Great Neck, N.Y., majoring in Biophysics and History.
