I would not recognize her if I saw her today. She was seventeen when she stepped onto the campus; doe-eyed, impatient, eager, utterly self conscious, and unjustifiably confident.
But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve for daws to peck at: I am not what I am.
She was an oxymoron, if it is possible to apply such a tenuous and overbearing literary term to a human being.
When I look at pictures and recall memories from only four short years passed, it is impossible to deny the transformation of being that has occurred.
And, after all, what is a lie? ‘Tis but the truth in masquerade.
My experience does not reflect the norm or stereotypical experience of the twenty-something melodrama portrayed in films, novels, or sensationalized biographies. It is, however, a tumultuous narrative of one woman’s journey to an elevated sense of self and heightened awareness of her capability to impact an evolving and yet disintegrating social order.
College alone should not be considered a rite of passage. The rite journey cannot be without struggle, opposition, and triumph. Attendance alone does not offer these things. Simple attendance without interaction, involvement, and true engagement is a piteous and feeble attempt to garner what true experience can be had during the college experience.
I have survived broken relationships, a home reduced to ashes, my parents struggle to avoid brokenness in the delicate destitute for reprieve, my family’s assaulted business, and countless other gruesome attacks and unravelings of the very fibers that construct my being, all the while trying to assimilate into the undergraduate lifestyle.
I have full cause of weeping, but this heart / Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws / Or ere I'll weep.
However, what I once considered a splicing of soul is now beginning to tear at the scarred flesh and surface as callous, a marker of survival, independence, and relationships.
If, while in the academic community, one is able to foster true relationships, develop a personal moral and ethical code, endeavor to live beyond reproach, whilst all the while striving to awaken ones soul through intellectual stimulation even in the midst suffering, then the journey is both telling and worthwhile.
Freshmen year I entered into friendships that I know will be long lasting. I also lost friendships from previous encounters. This was the first signifier of growth. I learned what it is to become vulnerable, into the very depths of my soul, and realize hurts that had been sequestered into the crevices of my mind.
My faith consumes my being, and having to withhold that part of myself in my past did not allow me to fully realize who I am and therefore I was unable to share myself with others.
Beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and devil are fighting there and the battlefield is the heart of man.
I also found that my story is valuable to others and that humanity in general has much more in common than what is ordinarily claimed. However, these similarities we share and the norms we adhere to do not necessitate that the individual cannot be recognized for being uniquely crafted.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made
It is at this point in finding oneself that the existential angst is first experienced.
