The accumulation that occurred over the past four years has not just been of material goods but of knowledge and comfort and moments of joy and exultation and success and pain and exhaustion and failure and second and third and fourth chances.
St. Louis and I have had a strange courtship. In the winter of 2009, as I was deciding which university's name would adorn my mother's car bumper, St. Louis was the forbidden city. My parents said it was too far away because they wanted to be able to get to me with relative ease if something major were to happen. There's a story in between that conversation and the moment I confidently walked up to my Mom in the student center hallway and said, "I think I found it" (referring to SLU as my college home) a few months later. St. Louis was a source of pride and anticipation that summer as I awaited the day I'd make a home for myself in the exotic, far-off land. Now, St. Louis is more home than Farmington Hills. I declare myself a member of and true devotee to Cardinal Nation. I know shortcuts and side streets here better than many who grew up here (thanks to many, many, many miles of running). Granted, we have had our rough times; I won't detail them here, but they have caused me to sink deep into my seat hoping to disappear as tears stream down my cheeks each time the pilot alerts us "we are making our final descent into St. Louis." And there is a whole lot in between thinking St. Louis was an exotic, far-off land full of possibility and now...and that's why my head and heart are so congested with flutting emotions right now.
I've had this existential feeling all summer that it doesn't matter. I spent middle school and high school and much of college trying to get noticed and being noticed and then those people who noticed me just drifted away. I spent years worrying about being involved in the right activities for the right amount of time and the moment I graduated, it seemed like no one cared what you did anymore. I'm worried now that when I leave St. Louis, I'll realize that most of it didn't really matter. Maybe I'm right and I'm too vain too anxious too goal oriented to notice in the midst of it. Or maybe I'm wrong and there is lasting value in every word, every decision, every moment. If it doesn't matter, it is easier to forget. That's what I'm really concerned about. I don't want to forget the joy and exultation and success and pain and exhaustion and failure.
