Monday was the first hot day we’ve had in a long time. One day we were still waiting for spring to fully arrive, and then it did without announcement. People were suddenly outside again in a way that made it obvious how long we had all been indoors, stepping into the cold only when really necessary.
The sunshine put me in a reflective mood, and I found myself thinking about sophomore summer, or at least its physical conditions. Walking back from the river, still slightly damp. Sitting on porches because no one wanted to be indoors. Evenings stretching so far out that you stopped checking the time, because time didn’t feel especially useful then.
I’m a little stunned that it’s almost been a year since that stretch of days. It doesn’t feel like it should have compressed itself into something so small and contained, but it has.
I had a picnic on the Green to celebrate my birthday on that hot Monday smthg like that. It was simple, with blankets, food, cake and people drifting in and out of conversation. Nothing about it felt formally marked in the moment, but I was aware, in a quiet way, that it was one of those days that is supposed to matter more in retrospect than it does as it’s happening.
Since then I’ve felt a little unsettled. Turning 21 feels like the last clearly-labeled milestone for a while. I’ve been moving through a sequence of obvious thresholds — ages that carry meaning on their own, summers that separate themselves cleanly from the ones before — and now that sequence is thinning out.
What I’m really reacting to, I think, is the loss of structure in how time announces itself. Up until now, it has come with markers: birthdays that feel significant by default, years that justify themselves in hindsight, seasons that feel distinct enough to name. But beyond this point, time is unreliable. It accumulates more quietly.
This week in Mirror, we enjoy the sun. One writer hears from students studying abroad. Our relationship columnist explores the politics of summer internships.
Time is starting to feel less like a series of thresholds you step across and more like a slow unfolding that only makes sense in hindsight. Not something that announces itself as change, but something that is always, quietly, becoming something else.
Aditi Gupta ’27 is a Mirror editor from Ridgefield, Conn. She is majoring in Biology with minors in Global Health and English. On campus, she spends most of her time working in a cell biology lab. She hopes to pursue a career that integrates her love for scientific research with her broader academic interests in health and literature.
