Closing Time

Hal writes:

For the past week it has been very busy for me as I closed down the hall for the year. It is now eerily quiet. Hard to believe that a week ago I was living amidst a vibrant community of 350+ people as they were finishing their semester. Now without the normal buzz of the building, I can hear plastic bags scraping across the pavement outside whenever there is the slightest breeze.

I had hoped to add some pictures of my staff during closing, but all of the rechargeable batteries are currently with a charge. So later on I will talk more about that.

One of the difficulties with my position is that it is difficult to bring closure to the year. Everyone is leaving at such a rapid rate, you don't have an opportunity to say goodbye to everyone, or at least have more than just a quick hug before someone leaves. When I got up Sunday morning, I look around an empty building and ask, did this just happen? Did 380 people just leave?

When a campus pastor retired from Gustavus at the end of my junior year, he did a strange thing. After his 30+ year of sitting on the stage during commencement, he left the graduation ceremony, got into his car (filled with belongings and his wife) and left to drive to their retirement home on the east coast. Back when that happened (I new about it ahead of time) I watched him leave almost immediately and drive away with very few goodbyes. I thought that action would be pretty difficult, without taking the time to linger around and bring closure. But this weekend I finally figured out why he did it. He didn't want to face the prospect of his last time on campus as one being an empty environment. His memories, particularly his last moments on campus, are ones filled with happiness and a vibrancy that comes with graduation day. To leave the next day, or even an hour later, would leave one feeling alone and empty. Perhaps on the day that I retire, I shall leave an hour earlier than anticipated, so that I can leave with the feeling of life surrounding me and not the emptiness of that comes from an empty building. (Now I have a song from Les Mis in my head: "Empty chairs at empty tables..."

As an ENFJ/Accommodater (for you non-CSP people, that means I am more likely to use emotion than logic in my decision making) I tend to have emotional reactions to change. And I have already had several moments in my life time when I was one of the last to leave an empty place. I was one of the last people to turn in my gown and get my diploma at high school graduation, I was the last person to check out of the FCA House my junior year (I still remember praying that the decision for our group not to return was of God's will), I was the last person to check out of my apartment after graduation from college, and there was more than one week that I worked at camp that after an exhausting, energy filled week, the camp was silenced on Friday early evening when campers and counselors alike were gone for the weekend. Now as I hall director, this is my fourth year going through a crazy check out process to be left as soul occupant of an enormous building. (And this year, the distance between my building and those of my colleagues makes it feel even more aloof.)

But now, the transition to summer begins. After going through my end of year RD check-out with my supervisor, I am given today and tomorrow to recuperate from the last couple of weeks. On Wednesday, those RDs who choose to work during the summer will be given their summer assignments. Since I am only working for three of the eight weeks this summer, I can't imagine my list will be very long.

So anyways, I'm glad to be back and in touch with the outside world once again.