Leaving is the hardest bit

"Leaving is the hardest bit, but you go you'll be glad you did."

- All Left Out

I discovered two days ago just how depressed I am about graduating. Yeah I mean, sure I'm thrilled to be away from the rules and logistics of living here on campus but in reality it's really hard letting go. Hilariously enough, this revelation took place while walking passed Bong [the building not the drug implement] on my way to the theater for rehearsal. I began to think about the years I've spent here on campus and the number of times I'd walked past that building on my way to the theater. I thought about the friends I had as a freshman, and the friends that I have now. I though about the number of times I spent in that building and how I'd been there five times since then.

I remembered the time I called my mom just to say, "hi" as I walked back from the gym. I remembered the time Wes Burkett climbed the brick wall outside while hanging out with me, Travis and Travis' future wife, Harmony. I also remembered most fondly the time Larry, Dan, Travis, Chip, and I marched around the lamp post outside singing "Yellow Submarine" immediately after Chip had climbed up it twenty feet or so.

I guess this is all part of the nostalgia, but nonetheless I find it's getting harder and harder by the day to be here only because I know how hard it's going to be to leave. My life is here. My friends are here. When May comes around though, everything is going to change. I'll be thrust cruelly into what adults call "life." I learn through my own mistakes as much as others. I'll learn to be self-dependent or die.

I know that more learning is what's next for me. I know that I'll eventually pursue a master's degree of sort some sort., but until that time God only knows what I'm going to be doing. With all of the stress and looming sadness however, God has given me a word. I need to just concentrate on my life one day at a time, and He's going to fill in the blanks. I don't know exactly what God has for me, but I do know that I'm merely a child in comparison to him and I need to trust him as if I were still a child in human comparison.

Come May, I know I'll be ready to go. There will be tears and it will be sad, but I know that for my friends and mentors it'll be bitter sweet. Because whereas we know that we are parting and that we may never reunite in this life, we have the hope that we'll be together on the other side in that cafeteria table in the sky.

God is good.

-scritch out

This is waaaaaaaay too many bits

Do we posses the ability to truly be expressive while hiding beneath the weighty thumb of censorship? The optimist inside of me that often tears at the walls of my mind and screams loudly wants to answer "Yes." The pessimist who lurks cleverly in the corner of my mouth, however, inevitably answers, "No." It's actually quite difficult to act within confines. We are told by our leaders to be expressive and to embrace our God given gifts, but when things begin to creep outside of their realm of control, we're stifled in our attempts. Is this a bad thing? Meh. Sometimes I think that control is needed. I mean, without some law and guidance we'd more or less float off into a space of anarchist hulabaloo. That's right, I said it. . . hulabaloo. Right?

But lack of control is just as bad as too much. When people are given unlimited power, anarchy ensues. There is no control and everyone either falls into chaos or all follow after one person which places that person in the role of controller. So control is inevitable, but the confines which a person applies to another are manageable.

In the right hands, creative control can be a good thing . . . a guiding force . . . a jedi master . . .

But in the wrong, it becomes too restricting and causes the discomfort and eventual rebellion of others.

So all of this to say, "Beware those of you who have power . . for someday, you will have to answer for how you treated those who were beneath you . . . whether it be to God . . . or 20 angry people with metaphorical pitch forks, torches, and strongly worded letters."

This being said . . . Macbeth auditions next week . . . Look for my sign . . . or e-mail.

-Scritch out