I decided when I got up this morning now that I’m done with school and everything is at it’s conclusions (it’s my last day before I will start donning a cap and gown and begin those activities) and I started thinking more about a couple things that I picked up while I was here. I’ve realized that while things have certainly not been perfect, they’ve been good. I don’t know, folks who might be reading this. I don’t know what I feel.
On one hand, I’m overjoyed to be leaving here: there are people and events that I need to get away from because they just hurt me, and make me feel upset. There are people I don’t want to leave, and then there things like the security and the safety that are difficult to replace. In the last 6 weeks leading up to this moment, through I’m sure partially my own choosing and part situations, all the feelings I have had have been acute – I’ve either been in a great mood, or in a just plain lousy mood. Situations I’ve been in have allowed me to be all of the above, but not in my usual even keeled state that I’m in. It reminds me a lot of my senior year in high school, actually. My lows felt lower, and my highs felt higher. I remember now writing something in a journal I was keeping at the time that said something to that effect. But I also said (and I will say it again) that if I was given the choice, I’d rather feel the lows to have the highs as opposed to always feeling the same every day. And I will still stand by that. For all the hurt and frustration and upset that I’ve felt since coming to college, I know that in the end, it will have been worth it if at least for the experiences and the character it gives, and at the most, the opportunities I’ve had to be someone significant in someone else’s life.
I realized too, talking about that, that I would much rather be significant to a few people in a big way than to be slightly significant to the masses. To feel the best, I want to be able to be someone that is important to just a few – a confidant, an advisor, a pal to have fun with. As best I can, I stive to be that complete friend. And while I can’t say I always hit the mark, it’s what I strive to achieve.
I strive also to have my life be a reflection of God’s integrity, and not someone else’s. I realized a few weeks ago that one of my biggest problems through college is that I sought my valedation and character through other people – sometimes friends, sometimes girls I dated, sometimes professors. And what occured from that was a lack of consistency in my heart. What happen if one person wanted me one way, and then another wanted something else from me? Once I finally realized that, I started to try to look to God for my guidance, and figure that whatever I have to do needs to please God, even at the expense of the people (Remembering that God comes first and people second hasn’t always been easy or apparent to me). When that happened though, I’ve come to find that life is easier and better. What you have to do makes more sense and is easier to understand. In the end, people see it and respect you in the end for it. It’s the difference between being told you’re a man or a hypocrite. And personally, I’ve always strove to be the former.
Also, this is probably my last entry on this journal. This has been my college journal, and so it makes sense with college over that I should get a new journal. I’ll give everyone a link to the new one whenever I decide to start it.
To everyone who made my life special here at Grove City special, thank you. When I look back and think of many of you, I realize you are so much of the reason why I am who I am, and I conisider myself so much more the blessed to have had you in my life. It’s been an honor.
adam w anderson 