encoded notions

It’s over and I am gone. My undergraduate education is behind me. Four years ago I was in the limbo between high school and college, and now I am in a different kind of interim.

Four years changed me. The experience, the people, the classes, the culture, the environment: they got inside of my head and altered me. I’m a calmer, more understanding person now. I’ve seen people at their best and at their worst. I’ve seen daybreak through the glassy eyes of an all-nighter on too many occasions. I’ve learned more than what my tuition payed the professors to teach me.

I’ve learned what it is like to be a part of something. One among equals. Walking away from this place hurts because I’m walking away from so many good people. I’m heading off to graduate school in Texas and my friends aren’t coming with me. There’s always that online presence, but it’s not the same as being with them. Together you share in the world from a similar perspective. Apart you miss subtleties like the tilt of a head, the energy in a voice, and the animation of a face. These are the things that we miss.

Life isn’t about happiness. Life is about friendship. You are born into a family, but you choose your friends. When you eventually die, the sum of your achievements won’t lie primarily with your family members, but with the dozens of people who you’ve touched in the tiniest of ways.

[I postponed this entry until time had helped to smooth out my thoughts.]