Maeve Hayden
Maeve graduated in 2019 with a Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Major. She is a proud transfer student, and in the past served on the Transfer Advisory Board and worked as a Transfer Student Peer Advisor. In her free time she loves reading fantasy novels and watching sitcoms.
As my final semester as an undergraduate college student winds down, and as my time as an intern for Iris comes to an end, I’ve been taking time to reflect on the last four years.
In a few short months, after years and years of stress, I will be graduating from college. I know, I’m not supposed to say ‘graduating’ because I go to UVA and we like to be elitist and use exclusionary language, and learning is supposed to be forever, but I’m sorry TJ.
When I tell people I’m never getting married, their faces usually look something like this:
Sometimes I take pictures of my books. I pull my favorites from their carefully selected spots on my shelf, and put them on top of my blanket, where the sunlight is shining. Sometimes I put them next to a cup of tea, or a small bundle of fake flowers.
In an old gym with wooden bleachers, a high school girls varsity basketball team plays their heart out in a game against a longtime rival. The bleachers are half empty, but the fans and parents fill the echoing room with enough enthusiastic cries that the space feels full.
My body wasn't always my worst enemy. Growing up, I didn't love my body, but I also didn't hate it. I was learning to understand it, as much as a young teenager can try to understand her body. In seventh grade, I started getting my period, and things were as they should be.