cowabunga, dudes.

We fidgeted on the ledge of our first photo shoot backdrop of the day: the infamous Frog Fountain. Two nights before, we’d splashed around with a co-ed cheer camp fervor until the campus cops came—naturally, we then hightailed-it to somewhere we could drip-dry inconspicuously. Sopping wet clothes now seemed glorious compared to the sweat trickling beneath our purple graduation robes. But, we needed to document this monumental week. We weren’t going to be college kids forever. We had one more day. One. More. Day.

So we jumped.

A friend’s proud mom Kodaked the moment: Lily pads of Frog Fountain curtain water behind us. Robes flutter around our midair forms. Arms high in various Power Ranger poses—mine whipped up into an unplanned ballerina “O.” Eyes squinting against the sunlight. Expressions of fear and glee. Everyone’s mouths open, presumably squealing “ahEEEE!” like little girls on a Slip ‘n Slide.

I saw this picture for the first time the day after graduation. Two photos before it, our group of eight crouched around the school’s emblem and then we held up our horned-frog hands at the school’s metal frog statue. My eyes started blurring. I flipped back and forth, tearing up at our smiles and how clearly they sang of the deep friendships we’d formed over the past four years. I looked up to avoid crying—it’d be my first time to break, to realize that we really did graduate. Life wasn’t going to look the same anymore, which is an obvious reality and a loaded question mark. My mind raced through the past four years. Lounging and laughing in each others’ dorms until unthinkable hours, practically every night freshman year. Coffee shop dates and late night heart-to-hearts. Interpretive dancing on the shores of various lakes. Typical downtown adventures. A recent camping trip when a raccoon stole my shoe. And, of course, our always-comical photo shoots. I clicked for the next picture, The Jump. I burst into a peal of laughter and the tears I’d been holding back spilled down—eyes to cheek to shirt. This is college, I realized. It ends, but it doesn’t. We rocked those college years, and we’ll rock our futures. We’re moving forward—some are moving out of city, out of state—but, in a way, we’ll still be the kids jumping off Frog Fountain.