I’ve been hiding in the corners of the bookstore while the weather changes a few degrees in either direction from day to day, as indecisive as I am about my “future.” When people ask, I assume I haven’t quite figured it out, and I can’t be the only one, so I admit that playing it by ear is kind of nice when I can get over the fear of uncertainty.
Up in the air, I read someone’s confession of a fear of half inflated balloons, hanging mid-air, hovering, not sure whether to rise or fall, whether rising or falling is more possible, plausible, accomplishable. There’s a lot for us to accomplish these last 40 something days until summer, until graduation, to what’s next for any of us – internships, jobs or home to regroup, travel, something breaking free of the grind.
For some of us the grind isn’t so bad. The grind is familiar and a little or a lot more comfortable than the forging of a clichéd path less traveled, leaving trails, terrifying and exciting all at once. I love roller coasters. I am the one with my hands in the air, yelling “yee haw,” climbing the steep rise to an adventure apex, potential energy building. I’m not science-minded. I didn’t take physics; I don’t know. But there is nonetheless a moment of disappearing courage when a jerk to the left or to the right is something unexpected and stomach-dropping.
We can do it, I think. We cheer each other on, and so does the sun of Spring. It is a source of perseverance, even when Emory Unplugged is dysfunctional and the mid-class fire drills or Dooley interruptions free us. They at the very least distract us, I suppose, and dancing during Dooley’s Week frees us from the grind at last and, for a short time, tides us over until the freedom of what’s next. What’s coming. Potential energy, or something like that. I didn’t take physics, I don’t know.
–By Chloe Olewitz
The Emory Wheel was founded in 1919 and is currently the only independent, student-run newspaper of Emory University. The Wheel publishes weekly on Wednesdays during the academic year, except during University holidays and scheduled publication intermissions.
The Wheel is financially and editorially independent from the University. All of its content is generated by the Wheel’s more than 100 student staff members and contributing writers, and its printing costs are covered by profits from self-generated advertising sales.
