A La FinSchool is finally ending for me. I have been trying to write up my thesis, study for an important exam, and look for a job. But I haven't been working hard enough, I know. I've also been trying to do what I want to before leaving. Just last week before the football game, the Boilermaker Express was chugging its way around campus. At a whim I went up to the guys driving the vehicle and asked if they were giving free rides. A curious wave of exhilaration overcame me as I hopped on the back of the choo-choo train and took in the cool breeze as it circled the campus.
Since the semester began, I've been sitting in for French and German classes, and doing fine. Yesterday, all of a sudden, as I walked out of German, I decided that that was going to be the very last language class for me at Purdue. The odd, liberating realization hit me as I walked past the maple tree that, at this time of year, took on three colors: the side nearest me was already yellow, in the middle it was still a fading green, and on the far side a dull red.
I fell sick a little more than a couple of weeks ago and as of today, I haven't fully recovered. It started the day after I talked with Dan over the phone. I cried and cried after we ended the conversation.
DaydreamingI daydream a lot. In the day, when I'm alone and not working, I dream about my future, all my plans, all my challenges, all the fun. Invariably somehow they would involve some bit of Dan.
At night before I fall asleep and in the morning before I get out of bed, I dream mostly just about Dan. Sometimes the dreams are about the sweet things but often they are also ludicrously about unreal events of the future that only exist in imagination, heart-wrenchingly sad incidents. And during such moments when I do dream such dreams, I cry and cry.
CryingOn a certain day last week, I think the date was either 9/20, 9/21, or 9/22, I laid a tiny milestone. On that day, I realized that I had gone through the entire day without shedding a tear -- for the first time since 5/21. In the beginning I would cry because I had to, because I wanted to, and because I couldn't not cry. After that, the crying went on but I didn't know why I cried, the tears just came to me all the time.
Things must have changed sometime after my conversation with Dan. Unwittingly the conversation must have made me realize that things are different already -- things change and they change without a whisper, like the leaves on that maple tree.
Tears still come when I think about Dan, but maybe for different reasons now.
What I doIn these last few weeks here, I go about doing my stuff like everyone else would. There is much to do. But there was one thing I really missed when I fell sick, and that was the swimming that I do. I love swimming, even if I'm not good at it. I'm about to make a promise to myself, I will cherish these last few weeks and go to the pool everyday and more than once a day, and swim the best I can.
You'd have no idea how much it means to me now.
I don't hope for too much. The best piece of advice I heard -- to not hope for too much -- after the phone conversation. I don't hope for much now, in all aspects -- and that is a good thing!
I recall the myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus once more:
"Je laisse Sisyphe au bas de la montagne ! On retrouve toujours son fardeau. Mais Sisyphe enseigne la fidélité supérieure qui nie les dieux et soulève les rochers. Lui aussi juge que tout est bien. Cet univers désormais sans maître ne lui paraît ni stérile ni fertile. Chacun des grains de cette pierre, chaque éclat minéral de cette montagne pleine de nuit, à lui seul, forme un monde. La lutte elle-même vers les sommets suffit à remplir un cœur d'homme. Il faut imaginer Sisyphe heureux."
In the english translation, it is:
"I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."
It's a good thing to not hope for too much. I don't hope to push the rock up the mountain, nor for it to stay up there, but I do it. I just do it! It is the rock that is beautiful, if one would take a close look at it. I know it because I have seen it. Dan has shown me, but he doesn't yet know it.
The WorldI knew today, not because Dan told me but because of the World Wide Web, that Dan and Jon are doing well and that they have made beautiful plans too. When I knew about it, I made a vain struggle to contain my emotions. Sometimes, certain matters are just too hard to bear, aren't they? But if one thinks I didn't want good to happen to the both of them, then one would be wrong. It was the other things that made me cry.
I thought about the rock in my hands and the hope that it carried. Not too much hope, really, but only the hope that I have the chance to write Dan a note or to say a few words the next time around. It isn't too much to hope for, is it? Every couple of months, perhaps, I will write or call him, to hear that he's doing well. It is my hope right now to have a chance to do that in a few weeks. And I'm sure after that happens, I will hope for the next time I can do that again. I don't hope for anything else -- just a few words would do.
Today, though, this is Aron hiding behind a false name and revealing something real about himself -- to the world. This is me telling a little true story, wishing to let myself be heard but not seen. This is me saying to Dan, I love you and I miss you so much, and I will always be your good friend, and wishing somehow he would hear me but not really wanting that to happen, and not caring how stupid it all sounds. It is me saying to myself, I will go on doing all that I hope to do and dreaming the dreams, telling myself to work hard for a better tomorrow, to believe all that I believed and to go on believing. It is me shouting out to Dan and myself, that I meant everything and well. And to all the people I love and who love me, that things will be fine.
