As soon as senior spring began, just like me, my phone felt the weight of graduation. It’s held four years of memories: formals, Homecomings and debriefs on the couch. It’s seen me during Foco late night and early morning Collis porch sessions, through my brief stints in the capitol and my class in Berlin. It’s stored carefully posed and rushed photos alike, some with my best friends and others with people I no longer even wave to.
These past few weeks, the dreaded and ever-persistent “iPhone Storage Full” notification became a reminder that it was time for me to make room for what’s next. So, in my spare time, I’ve been scrolling through my time at Dartmouth from my own lens, trying to decipher what matters enough to keep beyond college.
Freshman year was easy to delete. I took a lot of pictures — eager to document whatever would stick. And some friendships did, others didn’t. Some activities, like this very newspaper, became a constant, while others faded in time. My major changed with the seasons.
I was struck by how new everything once felt. After deleting dozens of pictures of my Mid Fayerweather Hall triple, I couldn’t bring myself to delete a video tour of the room, where I pointed out my view of the “famous” Baker tower. Even Keystone excited me — there were at least thirty aesthetic pictures of strewn cans around campus. Needless to say, those pictures can stay in Hanover.
Taking up much storage was a Green Key vlog that I made with one of my best friends. At the end, as we squinted into the camera on that sunny Saturday, she asked what I would say to my senior-year self.
“We’re just trying to find ourselves,” I responded, dripping from our dip in the Connecticut. “We’re still young, just little 25s. Well, I guess we’ll always be 25s. But then I guess by then there will be… 27s? Oh, wait, 28s. That’s crazy.”
I still say that now — that I’m still young with a lot more growth ahead of me. But I’m a lot closer now than I was back then.
After freshman year, the pictures were harder to part with. The first and last data visualization section social at Ice Cream Fore You. Girls that I once lived with and my soon-to-be roommates. A Lou’s cake for my 20th and a homemade cake for my 22nd. A mug with graphs and a ceramic mug with blueberries. Cutting my hair and growing it out again. My 23W and 25S bucket lists, each hung on different walls with various degrees of completeness and many same locations. I watched myself slowly starting to find out who I was at Dartmouth.
Of course, not all the moments were good. But hindsight is a funny thing. Even the tears and petty fights I’ve started to remember fondly, with a kind of bittersweetness. How could that girl in the photos have known that it all worked out? That, even if it took a few tries, I’d get the internships, job, sorority, experiences and friends. That it’s all made me who I am.
Before I ran out of storage, I’d actually made quite the habit of going through old pictures. There’s a reason so many songs romanticize being 18. I used to scroll back to that version of myself, convinced I looked better then. But eventually — maybe around the same time I realized I was too old for tiny shirts — I found myself looking back at my 20 year-old-self, since I clearly looked too young at 18.
Funny how it works: at 20, I wanted to look 18. At 22, I missed being 20.
It all reminded me of a quote from One Day, a show I watched during an off term in D.C. with a motley crew of ’25s. We were piled onto the State Department housing couch when the main character said, “I was really quite beautiful in my 20s, but I didn’t appreciate it at the time.”
Hindsight is, once again, a funny thing. There are a lot of beautiful things I didn’t appreciate in these four years, myself sometimes being one of them. I didn’t savor the breakfasts with my friends, only a short walk down the stairs or the street away. The hikes I’ll never take and the lecturers I’ll never meet. I’ll never learn how to use a sewing machine at the M-Shop or carve a bowl at the woodworking studio. I will have graduated without ever having watched a movie at the Nugget nor stepped foot into the greenhouse.
Endings have a way of bringing us back to beginnings. Somewhere along the way, I lost that eager first-year version of myself. But, I don’t want to be her anymore. She had quite a bit of growth ahead of her. As she once said, I was still trying to find myself. And I’m starting to like the person I’ve become.
As these final days in Hanover approach, I’ve noticed the beauty in things I once overlooked. The email invitations, written in rhyme. The way I can spot my friends’ silhouettes across the Green. The Collis workers who remember my order. I’ve become nostalgic for a life I haven’t left yet.
So, yes, I’ll probably have to clear out my camera roll again. I’ve tried all term, but most of the photos stayed. I couldn’t delete who I was, now that I’m leaving who I’ve become. The Halloween costumes that are now bequests. My sorority bid night, now mirrored by reverse senior bid night. The trip to Newbury Street my freshman year, and now a Revere Street lease. My first day working at the entrepreneurship center three years ago, and just recently my last. The end always feels so far away until it's right in front of you.
In the name of appreciating my 20s, thanks for a great four years. To the ’23s who let me lead the data visualization section as an eager sophomore who hadn’t yet taken QSS17. To the upperclassman who taught me how to play pong and how to sock wrestle. To the classmates who sat with me while I debugged my code. To my roommates who tolerated my ever-changing sleep schedule. To the ’25 who reminded me I liked writing in all its forms. To the firsts and the lasts.
If my phone allows it, I’ll try to get some pictures in at graduation. It’ll last longer.
Ally Burg is a former data visualization editor of The Dartmouth and a member of the Class of 2025.
