Write about decisions that impacted my life. I would have to say that this was one of the worst assignments I had to write about. Why? Because it went beyond the past two years when all of my important decisions have taken place. I look at school, here at Potsdam, and that decision was monumental. I had dove head first into relationships that would last forever, bull, and then had to stand up and watch them collapse. I had a wonderful girlfriend that was there for every important change in the past year for me, and promised to be there for all the rest, until she decided differently. My future developed, my life became clear, and this all happened in the past year. This was everything, right?
I sat in the laundry room, staring at the washing machine and the dryers and I started to reflect. I started to realize that my life, well it was a terrible and wonderful, lucky and unfortunate life that has been lived, full of second chances and opportunities that were left unnoticed. Living only two years, I found myself struggling for life. My mother told me once that I had flat-lined on the hospital bed, only by miracle being resuscitated. Decision to live.
I remember sitting on the school bus, long ago when I was not quite mature. Next to me sat a great girl, whom I had known for a few years and considered one of my best
friends. Then on the other side of me was a young boy, who mocked her constantly. I sat, joining his teasing, to the point where she cried. Later in life, she became my best friend, always the one to pull me out of the mud. Decision to be popular. Decision to risk my future.
I have a permanent welt on my forehead from May 21, 1998, the day I met the best person to ever walk into my life. My brother, Casey James, was brought into the world. Decisions of others, bringing me the joy of life.
I have fought against the forces of tyranny in my own household. I have made friends with the brown eyes of a four legged animal. I have lied and cheated my way through relationships, risking the souls and lives of friends that I would never be able to replace. I have been mistrusted for the act of cheating, losing a great friend in the process. I have seen all the possible deaths a family can have, short of watching a member of my immediate family pass, watching the torture and uncertainty that fills the voices and eyes of each family member. Suicide, homicide, accidents and overdoses, each and all. I have stopped the best people in my life from committing the same acts, pushing to help them overcome, and have seen others simply succumb to the torture. I have stood in the eyes of hundreds to say good bye, and have hidden in the corner when I am in a crowd. Decisions to simply live beyond all the odds, and survive.
Second chances, lost opportunities, all decisions that have affected all of us. How do you decide one that truly reflects you?
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Letters from a Freshman:
This month, my first here at SUNY Potsdam, has been so revealing and such a personal experience. All you reading this that are beyond freshman year know the empty feeling, even if you refuse to admit it, and the broken feeling of suddenly being away from the family that was the norm for so long. Now I reflect, thinking of my little dog looking at me from the driveway as my mother pulled the family van out of the driveway, one month ago, the last time I have seen my house.
I think about the phone calls, and think about the times my mother and father both told me that the most important part of college was academic. Sure, to a length, it may be true, but who are they kidding. As a student, academics have taken a step back to this thing they call life.
But look at what happens here, not just to me, but often collectively. Family is suddenly out of reach, mother is no longer here to take care of laundry, gas money is strictly my responsibility and suddenly I am hit with the realization that I am officially independent. Is this what the colonials went through after the Revolution, experience a period of searching, a period of wonder, of realization?
I think about the phone calls, and think about the times my mother and father both told me that the most important part of college was academic. Sure, to a length, it may be true, but who are they kidding. As a student, academics have taken a step back to this thing they call life.
But look at what happens here, not just to me, but often collectively. Family is suddenly out of reach, mother is no longer here to take care of laundry, gas money is strictly my responsibility and suddenly I am hit with the realization that I am officially independent. Is this what the colonials went through after the Revolution, experience a period of searching, a period of wonder, of realization?
Picturesc
There have been many times where the thought of a story would peer into my brain and shortly after run away to coward again in the corner. What stories do I have to tell? What separates me from the rest of the crowd in a way that makes you actually sit here now and read this?
To keep the answers short, I’ll simply say that I am an ordinary individual that lives by the ideals of the everyday, that each morning may be my last and all I can hope for in the end is one more day, just one more day to live, love and laugh the sun away.
So since there is no story to tell, I’ll say this. I am a college student in the great SUNY system, Potsdam to be exact, chosen over three highly better schools, but the liberal education and lifestyle of the staff and the concert waiting to happen living keeps me active, attentive and aware. For once, I am not bored with my surroundings, maybe because each turn presents a new adventure. I write this on the Christmas break of my freshman year in college, now a graduate of semester one and waiting the grueling semester that lay ahead for me in the upcoming months. I hope to finally travel overseas next year as a sophomore, to Hungary of all places, but who the hell knows? I may as well just study in England; at least I’ll know the language.
No my story is not an interesting one, but there are the stories out there that must be told. I stood in the dark shadows of a bus station not long before this vacation back home and discussed photographs with a man that has been in the business for decades. I was amazed by the art work that lay before me in the pages of his portfolio. But only when he started to tell the stories behind them, a fire in his building where only a small set of negatives were recovered, revealing a spectacular photo of a beautiful brunette on a ancient looking Jaguar sports car. This man had taken the pictures of dozens of individuals who had moved through the Potsdam school system that conducted music and had lived decades before.
I was pushed to thinking. If a picture of a leaf no bigger then a Canadian two dollar piece and a standing “Danish” wolfhound were so stunning, was it because of the visuals or because of the mesmerizing stories that followed them? I have always had dreams of raveling, to knocking on doors of people I had never met before and listening to the paths these people have followed to where they are standing at that very moment, captures by a spotlight and a lens.
All that I can recall are the pictures at the front of this portfolio, where all the dreams began. They are of me and someone special in my life, years ago and young in the evening sun. There are countless stories that lay in her delicate smile and inviting eyes. The starlit nights and snow covered mornings all but encompassed my teenage hood and made a future in me. I hope that this will stretch to the people who see them and realize the stories are of people who finally had them told, unlike the millions that lay quiet.
To keep the answers short, I’ll simply say that I am an ordinary individual that lives by the ideals of the everyday, that each morning may be my last and all I can hope for in the end is one more day, just one more day to live, love and laugh the sun away.
So since there is no story to tell, I’ll say this. I am a college student in the great SUNY system, Potsdam to be exact, chosen over three highly better schools, but the liberal education and lifestyle of the staff and the concert waiting to happen living keeps me active, attentive and aware. For once, I am not bored with my surroundings, maybe because each turn presents a new adventure. I write this on the Christmas break of my freshman year in college, now a graduate of semester one and waiting the grueling semester that lay ahead for me in the upcoming months. I hope to finally travel overseas next year as a sophomore, to Hungary of all places, but who the hell knows? I may as well just study in England; at least I’ll know the language.
No my story is not an interesting one, but there are the stories out there that must be told. I stood in the dark shadows of a bus station not long before this vacation back home and discussed photographs with a man that has been in the business for decades. I was amazed by the art work that lay before me in the pages of his portfolio. But only when he started to tell the stories behind them, a fire in his building where only a small set of negatives were recovered, revealing a spectacular photo of a beautiful brunette on a ancient looking Jaguar sports car. This man had taken the pictures of dozens of individuals who had moved through the Potsdam school system that conducted music and had lived decades before.
I was pushed to thinking. If a picture of a leaf no bigger then a Canadian two dollar piece and a standing “Danish” wolfhound were so stunning, was it because of the visuals or because of the mesmerizing stories that followed them? I have always had dreams of raveling, to knocking on doors of people I had never met before and listening to the paths these people have followed to where they are standing at that very moment, captures by a spotlight and a lens.
All that I can recall are the pictures at the front of this portfolio, where all the dreams began. They are of me and someone special in my life, years ago and young in the evening sun. There are countless stories that lay in her delicate smile and inviting eyes. The starlit nights and snow covered mornings all but encompassed my teenage hood and made a future in me. I hope that this will stretch to the people who see them and realize the stories are of people who finally had them told, unlike the millions that lay quiet.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
Posts
