This is a shoutout to North Dakota State’s senior citizens. That’s right: the 21-year-olds and older heading into our final year (we hope). We’ve had our run of the place for a few years now. A few extra for some of us, not that anything’s wrong with that. We know when to give 110 percent and what takes like 6 percent. We know what professors are the best and which ones are the worst. Sometimes it’s even the same guy.

And now these kids are on our lawn.

Well, they can have it. College is a young person’s game. It belongs to those with a crisp mind and clean liver. We had our moment in the sun. Let them get burnt out. We’ll just do what all seniors do eventually: retire to Florida.

Or you know, wherever there’s work. Probably the Twin Cities, which are just Fargo but taller and meaner. Just an evil giraffe of a place. It has to be, because it’s got bigger and better things. Let’s move onto them. That was the point of all this right? Four years of late nights and loans for 40 or so years of late nights and paying off loans.

That’s fine because we know what comes next. The work never stops. It’s not going to get easier because we don’t need to study anymore. The fun doesn’t stop either. We’re not going to stop being young any time soon. Four years of unhealthy and unholy habits won’t just disappear. We’ve got some long lives ahead of us, and we’ll finally have some cash. Frozen pizzas will be for gluttony over poverty. I’ll park illegally for the street cred, not the credit card.

We’re in the endgame now, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Thing is, that shoe’s been kicking my ass for the last four years. I kinda love the shoe. We’ve had some good times, the shoe and I. We shared some laughs. The shoe kicked some cool stuff my way. Classes that drilled me, friends that made me, a job that grew me, metaphors that went too long. I would love to keep hanging around the shoe if it would just stop kicking my ass.

So if you’re one of the seniors looking at a large and daunting future with hesitation, you’re definitely not alone. It’s scary. It’s also exciting. It’s like that movie you’ve seen the trailers for and knew would come out eventually, but it still felt like a pipe dream. An imaginary future that was also a certainty. Fact and fiction. I can’t wait to see what happens.