Three years at LUSEM finished.

It feels strange to write that, like holding onto something as it is beginning to fade. I was talking with my friends about how odd it feels that we have only known each other since we started studying and yet it feels as if they know me better than I know myself. Maybe that is what happens when you spend three years growing into yourself alongside the same people.

Three years does not sound like much, but when you try to hold it all at once it is almost overwhelming. I remember my first day at LUSEM. I was sitting outside EC3:207 with people I thought were my new classmates. That was until they had no idea what I was talking about and I quickly realized my first lecture had started in EC3:208. I opened the door to the lecturer introducing the programme and everyone looked in my direction. Naturally, all the seats closest to the door were taken, so I had no other choice but to swiftly walk past the lecturer and sit on the opposite side of the room. It was a very embarrassing first day and I didn’t live it down for a while.

Somehow, that awkward first lecture became the beginning of everything else. So many TDCs, so many crowded kitchens before going to a nation, sooo many omtentor, holding the same conversations that never got old. Now it is all a blur of stress, laughter, late nights and moments that did not feel important at the time but now are. Still, I have no regrets.

Now, sitting here writing my bachelor’s thesis, it feels unreal. In less than five weeks, the life that has become so normalized is over. Three years in Lund; gone in a flash. Somewhere between then and now this became a life I will miss.

Beginning to End

Having moved from California to Sweden five years ago, I keep trying to pinpoint when Lund stopped being something temporary and became something that felt like home. I think it was a gradual shift. Realizing there was always someone to talk to, or a casual ‘wanna grab dinner’ text that led to a spontaneous late night out. Even being a part of Nådiga Lundtan, an impulsive decision in my fifth term when everyone else went on exchange, became one of the most unexpected and meaningful parts of my time here.

It is strange how quickly routines form unknowingly and then how quickly they disappear. The places that once felt new became familiar. The people who were once strangers became part of my everyday life without me realizing when it happened. Now all of it is about to become a memory, which feels like a much smaller word than it should be.

Of course, I will be staying in contact with my friends, but it is not going to be the same. People move, routines change, new things take the place of old ones. Some might be going right to a Masters, others might start working right away, and there might even be a few left in Lund taking courses. This exact combination of people, places, and habits will not exist in the same way again.

What Stays and What Goes

That is probably why it feels so difficult to fully understand. While it was happening, there was always something ahead: the next exam, the next sittning, the next school term. Now, for the first time, there is nothing structured waiting on the other side, just space. No schedule to follow, no obvious next step, just the responsibility of figuring it out on your own, which is both exciting and unfamiliar.

It did not hit me until now how much this place, and these years, has shaped me. Not in a dramatic, life-changing way but in quieter ways, like the way I think, how I spend my time, and who I spend it with. In the kind of person I have slowly become without noticing.

Almost Gone

There is something about knowing your time in Lund is coming to an end that makes everything feel more vibrant, the small things in particular. Sitting in EC1:Crafoordsalen, realizing it will be your last lecture there, even though it feels like any other. Walking through Lund on the streets you know by heart, past places that once felt new and now barely register. The people you see daily or the conversations that would normally be routine somehow carry more weight now, like you know they are becoming limited.

It feels like the end will be subtle; the final dinner with friends, the last night out. That is probably why it feels strange to try and make sense of it now; there is no clean way to separate it into a ‘before’ and ‘after’, it is all just blending together like the past three years have. It is strange realizing how something ordinary only becomes meaningful as it is coming to an end.

Quiet Endings

Honestly, part of me expected this moment to feel bigger, more dramatic. Instead it feels quiet and understated, like something that mattered a lot without ever needing to say so explicitly. Maybe that is what I will take with me, the accumulation of everything in between. The ordinary days that turned out to matter more than I thought. The friendships that formed without effort and became important pieces of my “Lundaliv”. The routines that felt repetitive but now precious.

So while it is coming to an end, it does not feel like something is being lost, more like something left behind where it belonged. In the streets, the lecture halls, the routines that will continue without us, as if nothing ever changed. Still carrying on in that same quiet rhythm, long after this moment has passed.

Maybe that is enough.