Charles Nailen/The Hoya Tracy Zupancis

I’ve always been afraid of the idea of infinity. When I was growing up, I had a recurring nightmare in which I was laying down in a white room. The ceiling was low, right above my face. But there were no walls. Except for directly above and below, it went on forever in all directions. Then, this infinite room would start to rotate and move, and just as I began to fall through never-ending narrow space, I’d wake up with that nightmare feeling that is so much worse when you’re younger.

The idea that space went on forever gave me a similar reaction. As a little kid I’d try to imagine how big space might be and what might be beyond it and would have to shake myself out of a sense of vertigo. The ocean was another problem. When I was about 12, I was snorkeling and floated over an underwater cliff. The ground that had been just 15 feet below me seconds before was suddenly gone, I could see the reef plunge straight down until it vanished into a darkening haze and soon I was surrounded only by blue. I tried to limit my swimming to fairly shallow water after that.

For about eight years now the nightmare hasn’t come back. I’m pretty much satisfied at this point that as long as I don’t have to go to space, it can be as infinite as it wants. And deep water isn’t so bad if I’m on a boat or within sight of land. Now, the only way I get that instinctive dread of realizing I’m suspended in something infinite is when I think about time.

Generally my solution to this is not to think about time at all. This strategy actually works pretty well. The problem is that whenever I’m approaching some sort of “milestone” I start to panic. At least while I’m still at Georgetown, I can rack up various titles and grades, carve out something that seems solid. But of course, college is a four-year cycle. I’m ready to leave, but nevertheless the fact that it is over gives me a feeling of dizziness.

Growing up I spent a lot of time climbing mountains and looking down rock faces, or scaring friends by standing on the edge of desert cliffs that fell in sheer sandstone down into canyons. I’ve never been afraid of heights. But on mountaintops or canyon rims, there’s a privileged vantage point that’s lost in my dream, space or deep water. More specifically, with heights there are points of reference, with the other spaces, nothing.

Time often has points of reference that are fairly useless. You get older, you graduate high school, college, but this is simple marking time, orientations that don’t keep you from getting lost as does being able to see your surroundings from a high altitude. To me, it can quickly become that same falling through narrow space of my dream, that same feeling of being so small, hovering in something immeasurable.

School has helped me stem this feeling – it has kept me busy. Now I’m on my own to fill my time. But being occupied hasn’t provided points of reference for the future, only helped me to avoid thinking about time.

Looking back, my time at Georgetown has been filled by things learned the hard way – throwing myself into chance or making a decision and then learning what I shouldn’t have done. It’s often difficult for me to tell when I’ve done something right, but with a mistake, it’s pretty apparent something’s wrong. Knowing what not to do is at least somewhat helpful for the future.

The context and the setting of my fears may have shifted, but they haven’t fundamentally changed. There’s still that fear of openness, of what is measureless. In a way, that’s somewhat reassuring. Time may change things, but at least my fear of it has stayed the same.

Tracy Zupancis is a senior in the College and former Editor in Chief, Managing Editor, Viewpoint Editor, member of THE HOYA’s Editorial Board, News Editor and Chair of THE HOYA’s Board of Directors.