By Lyndsey Lewis

It was about half an hour after she ate the fried pickles that Christie began feeling ill.

“I need to go to the bathroom,” my friend announced, ducking out of our booth and leaving me to ask for the check. I gulped down the last of my plum-colored cocktail and wondered what I was doing in downtown Gainesville, slogging through another evening at The Top.

This restaurant, of course, is a favorite among graduating college students seeking an Authentic Gainesville Experience. Its quirky décor and hipper-than-thou clientele make it the perfect spot to reminisce about bygone years (“Remember that time we got SO drunk? And it was like, SO funny?”) and wax poetic on local charm. Better fill up on that vegan chocolate cake while you still can, because soon you’ll be graduating from the University of Florida and moving back to West Palm Beach.

Only, what if you don’t?

After five years as a UF student, I graduated in summer 2009, proud and relieved to be leaving Gainesville. Nine months later, an incredible job offer brought me back – this time, for good.

Now my student life bleeds into my adult life in manners both unseemly and hilarious. The Top is no longer some college-town novelty; it’s one of my few viable options for after-work libations. It’s also the sort of place I might find myself contemplating a forlorn array of potted plants as my friend, sickened from an apparently lethal dose of alcohol and fried pickles, hightails it to the restroom.

What happens when you realize that funky little indie joint is just another college hangout? Are your experiences – or, more precisely, your memory of them – as valuable as you once thought? Or, to place the question in a broader context: What about Gainesville is truly worthwhile?

As a UF student, I tried to savor as much local flavor as I could. Early in our college careers, a roommate and I trekked to Lake Alice one warm evening, where we were treated to the spectacle of thousands of bats taking flight. During various springs and summers, I found myself eating hot dogs at Ocala Jai-Alai and gambling paychecks on a game I barely understood. I ate pizza in the Satchel’s van, I saw monkeys at the Santa Fe Teaching Zoo, I bought books at the Friends of the Library sale. I even tried a few things current students can’t do anymore: drinking beer at Tim and Terry’s (recently shut down) and wading in UF’s 13th Street fountain (torn out some time ago).

These days, I rarely bother with the sort of activities that would make a college senior’s must-do list. After all, as a working adult in Gainesville, I have more than just the luxury of time – I have the burden of it. The days here stretch out before me toward some unknowable end, like a horizon reaching as far as the eye can see. And therein lies the secret: the temporary nature of a student’s time in Gainesville versus the permanent nature of mine.

A couple months ago, I found myself stalled in Archer Road traffic after a football game. Annoyance crept up on me – I have to get downtown! Don’t you people know that? – until, for lack of anything better to do at that moment, I glanced toward RVs in surrounding parking lots, most of them adorned with Gator gear. The view was almost entrancing: the stickers, the blinking lights, the flags so large they invited the urge to salute. I’m interested in the alumni who captain these moving shrines – they return to Gainesville for football, yes, but they also come back to celebrate a part of life that was all too fleeting.

I’m not one of those people who yearn to be in school again, but I see with ever more clarity the chasm that separates college years from the rest of one’s life. My own run-ins with Gainesville’s student world, at The Top and elsewhere, feel foreign to me because that life is so distant. Ultimately, the things students do during their stint in Gainesville – the places they visit, the games they attend, the restaurants where they eat – are not what matter. The short time one spends in college is precious in and of itself.

Pickle problems aside, there’s a lot to like about living here, and I’m tempted to recommend a few student-oriented activities I haven’t already listed in the paragraphs above. To be honest, though, my suggestions will only seem redundant. If you can’t fit in any more Gainesville adventures before graduation, know that your experiences here are already complete.

Thanks for the great essay, Lyndsey.

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