Commentary Tempus Fugit: Enjoy What You’ve Got By Stephen Twentyman (January 13, 2004)

I have recently come to the stunning realization that I can’t write very well on computers at all. There’s something about the nagging blinking dash thing that destroys all the good thoughts that I’ve had all day.

Therefore, this is currently being written while lying on my bed on the first of a small stack of sheets of lined paper to later be typed. So far it’s working wonders; I am all the way here, after all. Were I typing this on a computer, I would be continually erasing and re-typing what I’ve thought. All this is written in ink: I find it much easier (and more creative) if you can’t get rid of what you’ve written, at least not without very unsightly scratch-marks. If you, like me, have trouble writing on a computer, try doing it in a comfortable place by hand. The main problem is that you’ve got no way of gauging just how much you’ve written; I am already most of the way down this page (this is the bottom line). I don’t know how many words I’ve actually written [note: 183]. I’m already on my second leaf, so I probably should start my commentary somewhere around here.

Most of my worthwhile thoughts originate exactly where I’m now sitting, albeit somewhere closer to sleep. This is exactly where the thought for this commentary came from. Somewhere between waking and sleep about three nights ago (tonight being the eighth), a two-word phrase popped into my mind out of the blue. It’s a phrase I’ve never used in speech and maybe once, if ever, on paper, but I found it very exciting in this particular instance. It seemed to encapsulate perfectly what I had been thinking for a while now; actually since junior year or so, but especially now in my senior year. That phrase is tempus fugit: time flies.

I still see myself as one of the younger ones at school. This idea, to an underclassman, may seem ridiculous, but I honestly have never – and still don’t – fully grasped the concept that in six short months, I shall leave this school and move several hundred miles from home and that will be that. Obviously, there will be home visits, but, for all intents and purposes, in half a year’s time, I shall walk off this campus and never see the vast majority of you ever, ever again in my entire life, and vice-versa.

That’s really somewhat of a melancholy thought. There’s been a lot of sorrow involved in school since probably sophomore year, when I realized that people whom I actually knew were taking their final bows. I’ve never had very many close friends older than me – mostly good acquaintances – but it was a bittersweet realization nonetheless. Since then, the passing of time has been more sad than joyous. I’m as sick to death of school as anybody, but I’ll honestly miss the people who will disappear from existence, even those I don’t know or have even spoken to.

And this really comes back to the tempus fugit phrase I mentioned earlier. I remember the late summer before freshman year, when we were all summoned to the auditorium to listen to some motivational speaker. He lectured about how in reality we all have but a few school days – fewer than a thousand, I believe the figure was – so make them matter in a variety of ways. He proceeded to bore us with for the next bit of time, mostly consisting of common-sense advice such as "turn in your homework on time." I thought to myself, trying to relieve the dullness, that one thousand school days is one hell of a long time. Shockingly, he was absolutely right.

Freshman year seems like a curious distant memory, like childhood. However, it’s absolutely astonishing that sophomore year was a whole two years ago. It seems like last week to me. My junior year, like nearly everybody’s, was a somewhat painful experience that I wanted only to end in as soon as convenient. It’s taken on that characteristic in my mind, as well: it seems more like a bad dream that took perhaps six minutes. Juniors, stick in there. Sophomores, you may or may not know just how good you’ve got it. I don’t know what advice to give to freshmen; that year has somehow fallen mostly through the cracks of my memory. Odd, considering how clear my memory of eighth and tenth grades are.

But, in the end, surprisingly little has changed. I certainly don’t feel like a senior (that is, a "big man"). I pretty much feel the same as I ever have, since sophomore year, at least (I was very wide-eyed, timid, and awkward as a freshman). The cast of characters has just changed a bit.

I’m sure many, if not most seniors feel quite different from me. That’s alright, I wouldn’t particularly care for feeling like most other people, anyway, and I’m sure they think likewise.

The main purpose of this little piece of writing is to tell the younger students to stop worrying and enjoy what they’ve got. Now until your graduation will be a steady procession of partings and changes, so revel in today while you can. Take my word for it that senior year doesn’t feel markedly different from sophomore at all. It’s no use wishing for the future to hurry up and come; you’ll miss all the glories of the meantime and just feel disappointed and somewhat sad when it does come.

I would have done well to realize that in the August assembly before my freshman year. Tempus fugit.