In years past, I assured myself that my senior year self would have it all together. Having made it through freshman, sophomore and junior year of undergrad, the last year would certainly be a breeze, right? Wouldn’t I be excited to start my final year in Claremont with the friends, professors and people I hold dear?
In reality, “excited” is the last word I would use to describe my initial feelings towards starting senior year. As I was packing my things the night before driving back to school, I felt a complicated mix of emotions. School hadn’t even started yet, and I was already stressed about my cognitive science thesis and the three English classes I had enrolled in to catch up on my English major. I dreaded the graduate school applications that I knew I’d have to juggle along with my schoolwork, I missed my friends who had graduated in the spring and I suddenly longed for my mom, who passed away from cancer when I was 13. I suddenly felt the pain of her not being able to witness the milestone of me starting my final year of college.
I packed up my car the next morning and drove to school in silence while my dad drove separately behind me. After arriving at my dorm and setting up my room, we decided to grab an early lunch at a Japanese restaurant in Montclair before my dad headed back home.
We sat down and ordered two bowls of ramen, the restaurant’s specialty. I was still feeling “off” at this point — sad, stressed and altogether not wanting to be back in Claremont — but once the food arrived, all of these emotions suddenly came to a head. To the bewilderment of my dad, I began sobbing into my ramen bowl and I couldn’t stop.
I felt grateful that, rather than trying to talk me out of my tears, he just let me cry. Sometimes there are moments like that — when simply holding space for tears is more valuable than trying to figure out the reason behind them. It was just the two of us sitting in this little Japanese restaurant at 11:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning, listening to the sounds of my sobbing, my salty tears falling into my salty (miso) ramen broth.
I’m sure that the image of me crying into my ramen probably isn’t the most pleasant thing to visualize (in fact, as a reader you may find it slightly gross), but this tearful moment was honestly exactly what I needed. It reminded me that, even as a senior, it’s okay to not have everything together — that it’s okay to feel anxiety, sadness and even dread for what lies ahead. Senior year may indeed be sweet, but that doesn’t mean it’ll be free of hard moments, too.
“It was just the two of us sitting in this little Japanese restaurant at 11:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning, listening to the sounds of my sobbing, my salty tears falling into my salty (miso) ramen broth.”
There was also something remarkably comforting about this salty bowl of ramen holding my salty tears and all of my mixed-up, messy, soupy feelings. In its presence I felt safe to let my emotions spill over. I could freely express my sadness; I could freely cry; the ramen broth was already salty, so my tears wouldn’t make much of a difference, right?
I left the restaurant with swollen eyes, and the stress and sadness lingered for the rest of the day. In fact, I cried even more in the quiet of my dorm room until I had to leave for a club meeting that evening. But as I reflect on this emotional final move-in day now, I oddly consider it to be a moment in my life to truly savor.
I’ve been writing my “Moments to Savor” column ever since my freshman year, and a lot of the moments that I’ve written about have been lighthearted, humorous and sweet. This one has a different flavor — it is undoubtedly heavier, more painful and very vulnerable.
But I so savor this moment of me sobbing into my ramen at the start of senior year because it reminds me of my authentic, wholly imperfect humanity. There will be times when the demands of school push me onto auto-pilot mode, I know. But I’m reminded now to have grace for myself, and whether you are a freshman, sophomore, junior or senior like me, you should too.
Maybe amidst the chaos of the semester, we can go to that Japanese restaurant in Montclair, sit together over bowls of ramen, and simply let our emotions guide us. There may be times when we feel soupy and sad, and that is very much okay — we need not hold those emotions in.
Emily Kim PO ’25 is from Irvine, California. She is trying to make the most of her senior year and is actually enjoying her three-hour Friday afternoon thesis class more than she thought she would.