I haven’t posted for a while, and that’s because things started getting rough in January. It culminated in an attempt in March and yet another in May, which prompted me to stay at a residential treatment center for 3 weeks following graduation. I found it difficult to end my entries on positive thoughts, and trying to do so made me very sad. So I took a break from posting on the blog.
Things are brightening up though, because Eli the Pink Elephant has officially graduated college. Meeting people at the residential program who never completed college or have been going at it for over 5 years, I felt extremely grateful for the support of the people around me, for the people who helped me graduate in 6 semesters. No, I didn’t write a thesis. No, I didn’t get summa cum laude honors because I didn’t write a thesis. But I graduated after 3 years of enrollment. And I am OK without the honors. For me, graduation didn’t feel like a given. It was a gift. It felt like a miracle.
After leaving the residential, I traveled to Indonesia with my parents, where I witnessed some of the most beautiful sunrises I have ever seen in my life.
When I was a kid, I was really into the musical Annie. She would sing about how the sun would come out tomorrow, how no matter how bad the cobwebs were, they would be washed away. Watching the sun gradually rise, I was reminded of the life beat of the universe, the way I can always count on time elapsing and a new day coming regardless of how difficult things were.
The sunrises actually were a lot slower than I remembered them, characterized by steadiness and gravitas. The sun is sure of itself, not rushed but confident in what it wants to and will achieve by the time the clock strikes noon. First, a little crack of orange light emerges amongst the clouds in the horizon, then a splash of blurry red dots the horizon closest to the sun. I hadn’t studied sunrises enough to realize they looked so much like tequila sunrises. Then, streaks of blue-red emerge in other parts of the sky, until you can see the cotton candy-like texture of the clouds, which glow tangerine.
I think this has given new meaning to the phrase “take it one day at a time,” at least for me. When I feel like I’m free falling, I bank on the certainty of the sun rising tomorrow morning and setting tonight.
When someone tells me to take it a day at a time, I get tired. A day feels like eternity. But thinking about it as one sunrise at a time pulls me out of distress tolerance world, where I’m trying to survive the day, and allows me to actually live in the moment, noticing the way the sun rises through the sky and the way the light penetrates the clouds. These past few days, we’ve been doing hikes when it was still dark out. Then, when the sun rose, we suddenly became aware of the beautiful landscape around us, previously shrouded in darkness.
In a few more sunrises, I will be 23 years old, an age I thought I would never be. In a few dozen sunrises, I will be living in my new apartment, going to work in the mornings, and living the life I dreamt of as a sophomore. In a few thousand sunrises, I don’t know where I will be. All I know is that I will be. And I am curious to find out more.
The idea of commencement gave me a boost of energy. It helps to know that every sunrise is a commencement in a way, although some bigger than others. I am no longer a student. I no longer have homework assignments and I no longer live in a dorm. I am moving to a new city, starting a new job, and taking on new adulting responsibilities. That’s a magnificent sunrise, but not one without friction and pain. Ultimately, though, I’m excited for the sun to emerge so I can appreciate the new landscape around me.
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