A New Chapter for All

It's getting to be that time of year when I feel giddy and excited about the cooling weather, the bright blue skies and the changing leaves. Fall is (and will always be) my favorite season. Maybe it's because that was when school started, and despite my utmost contempt for it most of the time, I loved buying new school supplies. Well, new notebooks, anyhow. Most of the other school supplies my mom just recycled from my sister, which used to bother me when I was young but just makes sense to me now.

But those notebooks... crisp, clean and shiny white pages, a brand new chapter, a sweet blank slate. The idea that maybe, just maybe, I'll do better this year. New notebooks and sketchbooks also instill in me a sense of great potential... that I am somehow on my way to doing great and important things. It's only until I start filling them up that I berate myself and regret wasting paper and all of those forms of self-chastisement.

Fall now leaves a trace of melancholy in amongst its reds, yellows and oranges. I remember my junior year of high school, when I visited the east coast. Fresh and bright with my first love, thoughts of potential finally found, of great, grand cities bustling with stylish students swirling around my head, I came to Washington College with such a profound sense of hope, of at last pursuing my dreams. The college seemed large and wonderful, and the anticipation built up in my limbs like electric shocks. I knew that life would finally be different, better than the tiny town and smaller school I had called home all of my life.

But these last two years have been a nightmare if they were anything dream-like. I fell into the wrong group of friends, gave myself away in desperation to abusive, insecure people and in turn, became insecure myself. I'm struggling with my own sense of identity now, and what I really want to do with my life.

About an hour ago, WAC's presidential inauguration of Mitchell Reiss ended. I sang in the Vocal Consort that accompanied the ceremony, and I am lucky enough to have my name in the program. It was interesting to attend the long ceremony since many of the speakers were former senators, governors, and congressman. President Reiss is an important man, and I was struck by how much influence he really has, not only here in Chestertown, but in Washington D.C. too. I was struck by how superfluous my interests are: English and Art. Yes, I do believe they are important in some ways, but fiction or fine art are rather elitist things--someone living paycheck to paycheck is probably not going to have an interest in either. President Reiss was out negotiating with terrorists in North Ireland and North Korea. What will I end up doing with my life? Write a quaint number of books and collections? Maybe eventually sell a piece of artwork, if I'm lucky?

I know this existential moment is born simply out of my desire (or desperation) to be known, to have the attention all to myself, to be seen as a great person of... something. There are times when I wonder if I have become too ambitious, set my sights too high. It's the characters with too much ambition who are the ones who tend to fail in the end.