For No Particular Reason.

Back to School

Four weeks ago, I graduated college. I have certainly done my share of reminiscing about the past four years at the University of Florida. I walked the campus with a camera in hand and tried to capture as many memories as I could so I could cherish them as a photographic keepsake. It wasn’t until about 30 pictures in that I realized this would be an impossible feat. The only way I’m going to be able to truly remember my college years will be to revisit the campus years from now and reflect. Seeing as how I haven’t even officially received a hard copy of my diploma yet, I don’t feel far enough removed from my college years for a proper reflection.

Four years ago, I graduated high school. My high school years linger in the back of my mind, but most of those memories are stored beneath dusty yearbooks and crumpled up photographs. Tonight I took a bike ride to my high school on a whim of nostalgia. Make no mistake though: I never once rode my bike to school because my house is about seven miles away. But once I started pedaling on a seemingly routine evening ride, I knew exactly where I was going and couldn’t stop.

The campus was eerily quiet, as it should have been on a Memorial Day Monday evening. I hopped off my bike and took it through the hallways — peeking into my old chemistry classroom. It was almost pitch black but I could still make out the outline of the lab stools and the huge periodic table looming over the blackboard. I passed by many of my old classrooms, whose name tags introduced new teachers to me or reminded me of the familiar ones who never left. I did a line of pirouettes across what is now a wide open space in the foreign language courtyard outside the 300 hall. There used to be a gazebo there that we would go under to pretend to prepare for our AP Spanish exam. My bike became cumbersome, so I dropped it off by leaning it against my old Spanish classroom. No lock. Even though it has been stolen before, I somehow wasn’t worried about it. I just felt safe here.

Scrawled along the sidewalks, brick walls, and wooden planks were the words of the graduates: Seniors 2010, aka the Sen10rs. I could relate to these kids, since I was also the Class of 2010… of college. Yet this sidewalk-chalk wisdom seemed to have all the answers. The names of the couples who claim they will be together forever. Been there. The territory-marking of a student who thinks if he writes his name in pencil on a piece of wood that it will withstand even the next rainfall. Done that.

Words like “success” and “future” and “dreams” adorn the walls where quotes read like the pages of Poor Richard’s Almanack. Some of these kids can’t even legally vote or buy a lottery ticket yet, but they have the hardened experience and inspiring words of fuzzy-haired and crinkly-eyed philosophers. “Only you can make your dreams come true.” Oh, how little they know about the world. How little I know about the world, and I’m four years their senior. But I can say that I have learned more about myself, about people, and about the way the world works in the last four years than I have at any other point in time. And I will continue to learn as I continue to live.

I encourage whoever the heck actually reads this blog to revisit your high school or some building of importance whenever you have the chance. A drive-by will not suffice. Your yearbook is frozen in time, but that doesn’t mean the school is. You might learn more in one hour of reflection than you ever did on any other day when you actually attended the school.