Spring semester means activity at Penn State. THON. Spring Break. Blue White weekend. For many students, it means commencement. Spring is a time of renewal and regrowth but for some Penn State students, it also means the end. It means the end of what some researchers have called the best time of our lives — friends, learning and independence without many of the responsibilities that come along with being an adult.
In the many years that I have been advising university students, I have seen an interesting phenomenon take place for some in their final semester. In what is seemingly a time of celebration and ending, there is fear and worry. In addition to the symptoms of what we commonly call senioritis, I have seen anxiety and deep sadness about this ending of their time as a student. I’ve seen the quivering chin and the look of uncertainty.
Writer Judith Viorst called it necessary losses. To be able to grow and move on to the next stage of our life, we have to let go of what is now and understand that loss is necessary. We have to let ourselves grieve. It is the proverbial door closing so that another can open.
It is the reason that I keep a box of tissues in my office.
Grief. A profound sadness at losing something in our lives.
We have studied the human response to loss for centuries. We face a loss or actually lose someone or something that is important to us and we react. In the late 1960s, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross wrote what for many became the definitive theory on death and dying. After interviewing terminally ill patients, Kubler-Ross theorized that we grieve in stages and that, to get to acceptance of the loss, we had to pass through denial, anger, bargaining and depression.
Despite the fact that Kubler-Ross’ stages of grief have become culturally synonymous with the loss reaction, research has largely debunked her theories which were ironically written from the perspective of the dying patient, not of family members or friends. Therapists and counselors and others quickly transferred those stages to all loss reactions, probably because loss can be so uncomfortable and a predictable response was a way for that pain to make sense. The grief reaction is actually a very individualized response. Our resiliency in the face of loss is related to many variables and in most cases isn’t as clear cut as jumping from stage to stage.
I’ve been feeling it myself a bit lately. I’ve been hanging on to a relationship that I know needs to change. It hasn’t felt right for a long time and it’s time to let it go. I’m both anxious and sad but know that with loss will come growth.
The research shows that despite the fact that loss makes us very sad, it doesn’t mean we don’t accept it.
The student who feels sad that high school or college is going to be over and is nervous or worried about what the future holds rarely denies that it’s happening or feels anger or clinical depression. Instead, the person in transition needs reassurance and support. We need time to grieve.
I remember standing in the townhouse that I shared with college friends when I was doing my internship the spring quarter of my senior year at Penn State. I had just called home to say that my internship agency had offered me a full-time paid position and that I had accepted the job. As I hung up the phone, I felt a pit in my stomach and immediately began to cry. What I knew and felt comfortable with was about to change. I was facing a necessary loss.
When students come into my office with that look on their faces, I sometimes smile and say “in 6 months you will have moved on to the next leg of your life’s journey.”
I sometimes say “It’s okay to grieve.”
We’ve all been there. A chapter of our lives that needs to end for the next to begin. A house or a job or a relationship in our lives from which it is time to move on. We feel sad at the ending and know that we will look back fondly and perhaps yearn for a return but we understand that it’s time to let go. There isn’t anger. There isn’t bargaining. With uncertainty and perhaps some sadness, we continue forward.
To quote C.S. Lewis, “There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.”
