random thoughts in late September

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
-Mark Twain

A professor of mine stops me as I soak up the 8:55 sunlight beaming through the crisp air of one of the first Autumn days, walking to work. We chat for a few minutes, both grasping travel mugs filled with our hot morning beverages of choice (oh, one of the reasons I love America) and chatting. He asks me where I'll be serving food next Spring when I graduate with a liberal arts degree in religious studies. I laugh, and he tells me to really go out there and live.


When I think about my past three years and one month of college, the lessons that I have learned are of breadth and depth I would have never imagined at 18.

 One of my jobs this semester is working as a "peer assistant" for Explorations, a sort of Intro to College Life class for Freshmen. A few weeks ago our class was talking about why we come to college, why we have chosen a liberal arts school. I know I, for one, didn't really even know what a liberal arts school was before I got here, but just like these kids, by week two or three could have spewed out an entire jug of liberal arts kool-aid. It's a beautiful, brilliant philosophy. As they were spewing the kool-aid, an athlete in the back said, "I think maybe we come here just because we need to grow up. This is our society's way of helping us do that." I smiled, because I think that in many ways he's right.

When I think about the girl I was, shyly entering Veasey Hall three years ago, part of me wants to tell her so many things about life and love and beauty and grace, but so much more of me wants to let her be. Accept the timidity. Let her be shocked by all that will come. Embrace the journey.

She'll work harder than she has in her entire life, write papers on topics that she would have never imagined, opening her eyes wider than she thought possible. She'll make friends that will last a lifetime, endure struggles that will shape her for a lifetime, and find passions that will blossom over a lifetime. She'll cry and be angry and frustrated, scared and confused. She'll fail a Shakespeare test and think her life has fallen apart. She'll laugh about it later. She'll travel the country and the world, go to England and fall in love, come back changed. She'll find her calling. She'll ask a lot of questions. She'll learn that questions are better than answers. She'll learn to love simplicity, even seek it out. She'll learn, just like her Dad told her she needed to, how to think. And, most importantly, to live.

And that the journey will continue.

She'll learn that no matter what, if it scares her like nothing else in this entire world, she should probably do it. She knows now that fear is a poetic reminder of something beautiful and excellent that is to come.

♥