Like a Knife in My Heart....

I owe someone an apology. In preparation for our 20th college reunion, my friend Jay said, "It's like a knife in my heart that we're not young anymore" -- and I immediately told him all the reasons he shouldn't feel that way.

Well, I take it all back.

I love this picture representing the feeling, because it's not gory and it's not sad, and in many ways I think it represents strength. The heart still glows around the blade, and the two seem to be in the process of becoming one.

I knew my return to campus would trigger many conflicting emotions, and I thought I was prepared, but truthfully I did not anticipate the cascade of feeling that I think Jay had in advance.....and perhaps we all had before the weekend was over. The realization that essentially the same amount of time had passed since graduation that had passed from our births to when we all first met was monumental for me. It was wonderful to see so many familiar faces, and so many beloved to me. Our lives were different then, and have perhaps become even more different now, but we will always have our Davidson experience during a formative time in our development and that keeps us connected.

What I did not expect was the powerful feeling that this was a turning point.

Going forward, I think I need to not take for granted that Davidson will always bind us, at least to the degree for which I hope and which I need. I am recommitting to these relationships.

The knife may not come out, but the heart will always be strong.

The Dream is Always the Same

As Tom Cruise famously quipped, "The dream is always the same."

I'm on campus at Davidson College. It's a beautiful late fall afternoon with slanted gold light. There's that sweet smell of some blooming evergreen shrub and the soft sliding sound of insect legs rubbing together. I belong there.

Then I have a moment of panicked recognition. I'm about to not belong there. I'm in my senior year, all the tests are taken, profs are packing up classrooms for the summer, and my dorm is being emptied. No one is kicking me out exactly. But it's over.

I become intensely aware that this summer I will not go home and come back. I will just go home. (Dream editor's note: Apparently my subconscious is not concerned with seasonal continuity; I think the opening of the dream in autumn must be a metaphor for something drawing to a close.)

Now I am awash in all that I have taken for granted: the friends, the freedom, the opportunities, the culture of intellectual investigation and honorable debate. My mind races to bargain my way out.........what if I do this, what if I say that, how can I make this not be real. I belong here! This is my life. This is where everything makes sense, where everything has a purpose.

This is where I make sense.

But because the dream is always the same, it always ends the same way. I stand on campus with underclassmen milling around with their backpacks, and see that they are oblivious to my reality. They have one more year, or two or three. My heart feels like a stone in my chest. I know I can't come back, but I don't know where I am going or how I will cope with the fact I can never return, not really. I can come back to this physical place, but this Place is no more.

Like a play the curtain of my mind draws shut. I wake up, knowing full well I will relive this moment over and over again for the rest of my life. I focus on bittersweet gratitude, squeeze my eyes open and closed, and pull myself up.

Photo credit by Muffet: http://www.flickr.com/photos/calliope/281377918/