Life always seems to come in waves – a moment of peace, followed by a crash of exuberance. A relaxing and quiet summer is followed immediately by 15,000 or so people pilgrimaging to Newark, DE for the start of UD’s newest semester. The relative calm of my junior year, where I finally felt as though I knew what I was doing and found my place, is now pushed away by an immediate sense of dread and panic – I have less than a year left where my life is planned out for me.

The hustle and bustle of a new school year has hit hard, and it hit fast. Gone are the days that I never had to wait in line for my morning coffee, and even to just get a bus from the most northern tip of campus to the most southern point of campus, I need to wait for two or three buses before there’s enough space for me to fit on. But it’s not just the areas that the areas immediately on campus. When I visited the alcove that I’ve called my own throughout the course of the summer, there were footprints. Even my sanctuary is a victim of the insanity that is the beginning of the semester.

The rush of the world that I didn’t feel over the summer is back – even in the place I go to escape it all. Maybe I’m just imagining it, but the creek seems to be flowing with more urgency. The plumb brown Warblers are singing with a sense of desperation, as if it is absolutely critical that their chirps be heard. This is mimicked back on campus with the new freshman with wide-eyes, darting from building to building, maps clutched in hand. Friends are shouting hellos across the green, trying to catch up from months apart in just a few minutes before running to their next class. Planners are being filled and double booked in some cases. No longer do I wake up to the sun peeking through my window, but now a screeching alarm is my morning greeting.

While the wave seems to be crashing hard right now, the insanity will recede soon. It always does. On the sandy beach of Long Beach Island in New Jersey, the salty ocean waves lap onto the perfectly yellow and smooth sandy beaches, but they always retreat, even if for just a moment. The same is true on the rockier edges of Lake Champlain, where the waves crash over the smooth grey river rocks and onto the coarse sand mixed with green sea glass and odd chunks of concrete blocks, left behind by construction projects that have long been completed. Small waves hit the banks of White Clay Creek by my personal alcove, and the sand is really dirt, and not the familiar sand of the Jersey Shore or the beach near my family’s lake house, but the waves are the same. A crash, followed by a retreat. A flood of responsibility and a surge of activity, and while the new responsibilities aren’t withdrawn, they certainly become easier and part of a routine.

There’s never an end to the cycle. In and out, in and out. With each influx, there’s always relief coming soon, no matter how large the wave.