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The College Years (Chapter 30)
By Vader
THE COLLEGE YEARS
Entry III: Time of Conclusion
Continued from Chapter 29 . . .
CHAPTER 30
The isolated location of the brawls and confrontations with Scott. The table in the library, glimmering with evanescence, where Erin and I had shared our first passionate moment. The back lot outside of where the Winter Party had been held, the spot of the fight with Kevin. I visited them all, roaming the school with a glazed look in my eye and a heart-breaking letter from a loved one in my hand.
I was by myself, in the middle of a deserted courtyard, standing still and looking into oblivion. Blasts of cool wind slammed against me, bringing with it shards of memories. I kept standing . . . questioning . . . thinking . . . deciding . . .
It had struck the final hour of my first semester of my college years. The pinnacle had arrived. The crescendo beckoned me.
I sat in the same classroom I had returned to again and again and again for months, with my classmates and English teacher sitting around me, a somber mood heavy in the air, tainted with a few semi-funny jokes that did nothing to lighten the mood.
This was it. Departures were being made. Bonds were being broken. And everlasting change was about to happen all over again.
“Guys, I want to tell you that I really had I great time teaching you all,” Sim began with a faint smile, quieter than usual. I half-expected him to follow up with a cheap shot at Zig and a hearty laugh, but it never came. “I learned a lot of things, and I’m sure you did too. And that’s why I want you, as your final assignment, to get out a piece of paper and pen, and write down what this semester was like for you.” The usually giddy and rowdy crowd was surprisingly silent, nodding thoughtfully, doing as instructed.
There I was, faced was with the task of pouring everything that had happened, in effect, my very soul, onto a single piece of paper. It seemed like in order really do it properly, I would need to write a whole book. Nevertheless, I emoted a strained expression, and then rested my pen onto the page, my thoughts flowing out to become written words, making the period given to do so go by so quickly, I was almost shocked when it was over.
“Let’s read a few of these,” Sim announced out of the blue. Totally unprepared for a presentation like that, I became relatively uneasy about letting go of myself to all in the room. Sure enough, I was the first called on.
Shutting my eyelids for a moment, reopening them, standing up, clearing my throat, giving an unsure glance to the teacher, I began.
“Someone once told me that life was like surfing.” At that, everyone looked directly at Sim, giggling under their breath, and afterwards turned back to me. That alone was enough to make me a little more relaxed. “He said that even when you see huge waves coming, you have to ride them, even though you might be totally wiped out. Before this, I never knew what it felt like to be wiped out . . . to be left completely hopeless.
“Friendship that showed no signs of faltering, and a love that burned like a limitless starburst in my soul . . . was taken all away. Everything that I knew, everything that I adored was shifted, as if my life was only a plaything to something above. In the beginning, I tried to hold on to it all, I tried to keep it before it went away, but I soon realized it was like chasing the wind,” I began, probably surprising most of the students with my serious tone. “And so I was forced to come here, where I was completely out of place, with nobody to relate to, nobody to understand me. I put forth the hardest effort of my life to succeed at making my way here, but I wasn’t allowed, and I was confronted by a string of awful events. The very moment I found someone who could help me through it, we were torn apart. Our love wasn’t allowed, because time was a ruthless barrier to my past and a bringer of pain in my future.
“I hated time.
“I hated myself.
“I hated . . .my life,” I expressed, my voice cracking with intense emotion.
“But then . . . when I recognized this, and saw how wretched I had become, I stopped, I paused, I thought . . .
“What do you do when something like this happens?
What can you do when you try to fix everything, but you still know you can’t?
What do you do when nothing goes right and everything that you held dear to your heart is utterly destroyed?
When all you want to do is stop, and go back to the way things were . . . do you realize it’s impossible?
You can’t change it, you can’t bring it back.
You tried to, but look what you’ve become.
Everything now is different, unfamiliar, and unwanted.
What do you do now, Jack? What do you do now?”
The teardrops I’d done my best to hold back for the entire reading now sprung to the tips of my eyelids uncontrollably.
“So many terrible things had happened . . .so much was lost . . . so much change had occurred in such a little period of my life, I’d been completely overwhelmed. I finally understood cold, harsh truth - I couldn’t do anything. I could never stop change. It would happen again and again, whether I wanted it to or not.
“When I recognized all of this, I seemed to somehow grow stronger . . . as if more determined, like I was seeing a new attitude, a new opportunity, and for the first time in so long, a new hope.
“My dark eyes were enlightened, and the tears I’d cried for so long were dried, and all that was dark and depressing was shattered and obliterated – all because I’d made a resolve that would affect the rest of my life: No matter what happens from now on . . . keep trying . . . keep struggling . . . make it.
“Now, I have no way of knowing what the future holds in store fpr me. The lyrics of a song I recall, ones that have so much meaning, knowing exactly how I feel, say:
Who can say why your heart sighs,
When your love flies?
Only Time
Who can say where the road goes?
Where the day flows?
Only Time
In the end of it all . . . this experience alone has transformed me into a different person – it had been for the worst, but now . . . maybe its for the best. I will always have the lessons I’ve learned here, to help me to make decisions in the future, whenever there is a fork stuck in the road. And I will always have those that will stand by me, to see me through it all. And, as time goes by, as my life takes me to wherever, there is still going to be that single, small place deep down for looking back on this all.”
THE END
4/9/2003 2:11:25 AM
(Updated: 4/9/2003 2:22:24 AM)
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