Half a Decade Later
Five years ago, I graduated from college. Five years ago, I sat in Crisler Arena and listened to Lee Bollinger tell me that I didn’t need to know everything, and that indeed I’d be constantly amazed by everything I didn’t know, but that knowing a few things very well would help get me through life. At the time, I thought I knew medieval and early modern English literature; I was applying to the University of Toronto’s English M.A. program and, in April of 2001, I would be accepted. Who knew that I wouldn’t be able to go in September 2001, would barely be able to go into September 2002? Who knew that the exprience would be anything but extraordinary? Who knew that the thing that I wanted to know the most wouldn’t work out at all? I got my M.A., yes, but it’s sad to think that it hasn’t done much for me at all. I’m now hoping that what I do know well these days–editing–will carry me towards better things and places. In contemplating the fact that I graduated five years ago, I’m not saddened but actually wondering where the time went. A part of me is wishing I had done something different with the time, but it’s hard to argue against what I did do: I did my best, I’ve come across wonderful people, and I’m now making an effort to finally start my life. Now that I have direction that’s grounded in reality and in people, not in books and 16th century England, I feel a lot more certain that it’s going to happen eventually. It took a while to shake me into reality, but it’s finally happened.
And I don’t even remember what Elmore Leonard said to us that day in 2000.
