the ever present past has passed



I was at UDub last Friday to pick up my transcripts for my graduate school apps and I managed to have a bit of time to sit down in 'ol Red Square... blame it on my over-zealous attack on the parking meter with the pocketful of quarters I had.

Fridays on campus are still uncrowded.

Sitting there and enjoying the beauty of the campus, with Mt. Rainer slightly visible in the distance, I found myself reflecting on the past few years of post-college life. This March will mark exactly 3 years since I graduated in 2002 and all the craziness of that year (9/11 terrorist attacks, 2002 CoHi, 9 months straight of unemployment and depression)

I look back on my university days with a lot of fondness, but my reminiscing is also filled with a lot head-shaking, sighing, and wishful thinking. I hated junior high and high school so much, I couldn't help but be idealistic about a change. After it all was finished, I really felt, Everything is going to be better... and for a time, it was. If I could go back and talk to my clueless freshman self, I'd have a lot to say - don't eat so much dorm food... pick classes you actually care about... volunteer work doesn't pay bills... travel more, not less... stay away from all girls with issues... be careful what you invest your time in doing... don't expect so much from the future...

...but as cliche goes, what has been done cannot be undone.

It's easy to look always into the past. People do it because removed from the circumstances and aware of the results of their decisions, they can see the events of the past clearly. It's difficult to look forward to the future because no person can see the future. To be hopeful, to trust that everything has been ordained for a reason - that's a something very, very hard to do. Looking into the future is staring off into blank space, like trying to read the blank pages of a book whose script is invisible only after it's all said and one. We can't do it.

That's the what crossed my mind, sitting there in Red Square. Even with a backpack on my back, cap pulled low, and iPod blasting music in my ears, I felt about a 100 years old and separated from all the students walking around me. And when you feel 100 years old, it's hard to get up and carve yourself out a future from a past that's hard to forget.

There's no other way, though.
posted by G at 4:33 PM   |

in?scrip?tion (n-skrip-shun)n.
1. The act or an instance of inscribing.
2. Something, such as the wording on a coin, medal, monument, or seal, that is inscribed.
3. A short, signed message in a book or on a photograph given as a gift.
4. The usually informal dedication of an artistic work.
5. Jeremiah 31:33