As my second year of college comes to an end, I’ve had a lot of thoughts about how quickly time has moved during this phase of my life. It is simultaneously heartbreaking and exciting; the fear of becoming a “real adult” juxtaposed with the joy of growing up.

During my premature mourning period, I have found comfort in the 1983 comedy “The Big Chill” which is about a group of old college friends spending a weekend together after one of the group members passes away. Distance, marriages, careers and children have separated the group but their closeness never changed as they picked up where they left off. It is what all of us want out of college: lifelong friendships and formative memories.

The concept of aging into adulthood seems more pleasant when I think about the friends I have made at all stages of life, but the friendships formed in college are unique. We have a better ability to select those we spend our time with now, as we have stronger senses of self and know what we value in relationships. The convenience of college living only helps to establish our intimate friendships.

“The Big Chill” shows the devotion of friends made in college. The group in the movie still sees staying up all night talking and sleeping in the same place as normal parts of their dynamic. They act as one big, happy family and they could not be happier to be together in that moment.

A scene in the movie involves the seven friends dancing around a kitchen table as they clean their dishes from dinner. The youthful aura that this moment contains reflects the times during this period of our lives that we will cherish eternally. We will remember the trials and tribulations of our early morning classes; we will remember the late night cramming for our core curriculum classes. But, the memories that will be celebrated occur when we have our own kitchen dancing moments.

Seeing this movie before having the on-campus college experience worried me as I thought that I wouldn’t be able to find friendships that reflected theirs. Now that I have experienced so many late nights in the newsroom, my friend group’s “Bernet Hangouts,” hours of my roommate and I successfully learning dances from “High School Musical” and countless philosophical discussions, I can confidently say I have started to create those lifelong friendships we see in the movies. 

It seems a bit pointless to reminisce on my college experience because I have so much time to go. But, I am taking this as an opportunity to teach myself to savor these next few semesters I have left of undergraduate education. The core memories I am accumulating at John Carroll will be formulative to my relationships with friends and the person I am growing to be. 

Attempting to start my twenties with this mindset has helped keep me grounded in moments as I enjoy them. Start defining your college experience by the positives, keep yourself grounded in the moments that surround us and look forward to you and your college friends’ kitchen table moments one day.