As I begin writing this, I am sitting in an airport lobby waiting for my plane to leave. It is close to 6 a.m. and I waiting for the sun to rise. It doesn’t. The sky is rainy and dark — a perfect reflection of how I am feeling. The trip I have taken ends, with absolute certainty, a complicated stage in my life and I am glad it is over. Sometimes letting go of something is not giving up; it is simply moving on.
It is still rainy, but as the plane breaches the dense gray clouds the scenery changes. Through my window, the sky is intensely blue highlighted by a glowing sun. It is impossible to believe that a whole different sky existed beyond the clouds and though it may sound corny, I am reminded that there is always a new beginning. Every ending is a new beginning.
New beginnings have been on my mind a lot lately. I am graduating and I’m in the process of piecing together what I’m going to do “with the rest of my life”— a difficult task for a girl who does not plan and tends to takes things as they come.
As I contemplate this upcoming ending, I draw blank after blank and rerun through my mind four years of college. How prepared am I to face the so-called real world? Doubt and panic ambushes me, and it takes awhile to convince myself again that I don’t need to have everything figured out just yet.
I stop fretting. Though I do not have everything mapped out, I remember that there is no time but the moment we are living. Though it is important to prepare for the future, life takes turns and change is inevitable — we cannot be attached to one single outcome.
Mistakes, adjustments and readjustments are part of life and there is nothing wrong with changing your mind, shaping your own path and making your own mistakes — which will hopefully become great learning experiences.
The ending I am recovering from inside this crowded plane seals an important event in my life — just like the end of college. In both things, there has been great people and memories and what’s done is done — I cannot change that and I wouldn’t want to.
I believe regret is a waste of time, and though things could have been different, wondering “what if” is futile. In my opinion, living life to the fullest means living in the moment and appreciating everything for what it is, the ups and downs, whether mistakes or not.
With any kind of ending, it is easy to get caught up in the nostalgia of it; especially since, as people, we seem only to appreciate things when we have lost them.
Luckily, I can say that I was always aware of the impermanence of college and thus, I appreciated every moment that I spent here with the people that I got to know — both incredible professors and friends.
But everything is temporary and sooner or later all must come to an end — and it is important to see the beauty in a sunset, stay up to watch the sunrise and prepare to live fully in the new day.
Melanie Aleman can be reached at [email protected]
