riz.vee.vee
Music was made for love.
The piece below was written by Marina Keegan ‘12 for a special edition of the News distributed at the class of 2012’s commencement exercises last week. Keegan died in a car accident on Saturday. She was 22.
We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I could say that’s what I want in life. What I’m grateful and thankful to have found at Yale, and what I’m scared of losing when we wake up tomorrow and leave this place.
It’s not quite love and it’s not quite community; it’s just this feeling that there are people, an abundance of people, who are in this together. Who are on your team. When the check is paid and you stay at the table. When it’s four a.m. and no one goes to bed. That night with the guitar. That night we can’t remember. That time we did, we went, we saw, we laughed, we felt. The hats.
Yale is full of tiny circles we pull around ourselves. A cappella groups, sports teams, houses, societies, clubs. These tiny groups that make us feel loved and safe and part of something even on our loneliest nights when we stumble home to our computers — partner-less, tired, awake. We won’t have those next year. We won’t live on the same block as all our friends. We won’t have a bunch of group-texts.
This scares me. More than finding the right job or city or spouse – I’m scared of losing this web we’re in. This elusive, indefinable, opposite of loneliness. This feeling I feel right now.
But let us get one thing straight: the best years of our lives are not behind us. They’re part of us and they are set for repetition as we grow up and move to New York and away from New York and wish we did or didn’t live in New York. I plan on having parties when I’m 30. I plan on having fun when I’m old. Any notion of THE BEST years comes from clichéd “should haves…” “if I’d…” “wish I’d…”
Of course, there are things we wished we did: our readings, that boy across the hall. We’re our own hardest critics and it’s easy to let ourselves down. Sleeping too late. Procrastinating. Cutting corners. More than once I’ve looked back on my High School self and thought: how did I do that? How did I work so hard? Our private insecurities follow us and will always follow us.
But the thing is, we’re all like that. Nobody wakes up when they want to. Nobody did all of their reading (except maybe the crazy people who win the prizes…) We have these impossibly high standards and we’ll probably never live up to our perfect fantasies of our future selves. But I feel like that’s okay.
We’re so young. We’re so young. We’re twenty-two years old. We have so much time. There’s this sentiment I sometimes sense, creeping in our collective conscious as we lay alone after a party, or pack up our books when we give in and go out – that it is somehow too late. That others are somehow ahead. More accomplished, more specialized. More on the path to somehow saving the world, somehow creating or inventing or improving. That it’s too late now to BEGIN a beginning and we must settle for continuance, for commencement.
When we came to Yale, there was this sense of possibility. This immense and indefinable potential energy – and it’s easy to feel like that’s slipped away. We never had to choose and suddenly we’ve had to. Some of us have focused ourselves. Some of us know exactly what we want and are on the path to get it; already going to med school, working at the perfect NGO, doing research. To you I say both congratulations and you suck.
For most of us, however, we’re somewhat lost in this sea of liberal arts. Not quite sure what road we’re on and whether we should have taken it. If only I had majored in biology…if only I’d gotten involved in journalism as a freshman…if only I’d thought to apply for this or for that…
What we have to remember is that we can still do anything. We can change our minds. We can start over. Get a post-bac or try writing for the first time. The notion that it’s too late to do anything is comical. It’s hilarious. We’re graduating college. We’re so young. We can’t, we MUST not lose this sense of possibility because in the end, it’s all we have.
In the heart of a winter Friday night my freshman year, I was dazed and confused when I got a call from my friends to meet them at EST EST EST. Dazedly and confusedly, I began trudging to SSS, probably the point on campus farthest away. Remarkably, it wasn’t until I arrived at the door that I questioned how and why exactly my friends were partying in Yale’s administrative building. Of course, they weren’t. But it was cold and my ID somehow worked so I went inside SSS to pull out my phone. It was quiet, the old wood creaking and the snow barely visible outside the stained glass. And I sat down. And I looked up. At this giant room I was in. At this place where thousands of people had sat before me. And alone, at night, in the middle of a New Haven storm, I felt so remarkably, unbelievably safe.
We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I’d say that’s how I feel at Yale. How I feel right now. Here. With all of you. In love, impressed, humbled, scared. And we don’t have to lose that.
We’re in this together, 2012. Let’s make something happen to this world.
Our best days are still ahead, still ahead.
So full of life and vitality thanks to my cup filled with Jasmine Tea. Every sip makes me shrug and do a little happy dance. Must start mornings like this instead of right before bedtime. : p
Concurred : )
(via brentopher)
(via things-that-sparkle)
I’ve accepted that right now is where I need to be. Right now is good enough. I’m still reeling off the energy from The OpEd Project’s Seminar last Saturday. I met lots of amazing women, mostly older and accomplished. I still wish there were more women of color present since that’s what they claim their target audience is. But being in the same space as others with impressive resumes generates the realization that I’m going to be as successful. I also helped organize a Global Women’s Health symposium that happened yesterday. I was responsible for picking up a top-notch doctor, who was a key presenter. Again, rubbing elbows with people of influence only propels you forward.
But just the other day, I failed my smog test. Hearing the news was just as bad as getting rejection notices from positions I sought highly after. The out-of-pocket expenses will swallow my savings miserably. All I could think about in the moment was, “Gosh, will I ever have enough financial security to get out of here?” Getting rid of my car is an option, but then again, I have to commute. Public transportation doesn’t seem reliable in the long haul.
A good friend told me that if I crush all my options I’ll never make a decision. So I did what I know best-write and organize all ideas in my beloved Moleskine. Things will pan out they way they should. Whether it be a high dose of fortune or a miserable spiral to the ground, at least there’s a neutral state. Here, I can appreciate a good wind blowing against my face, which leaves my skin a little cold and feeling refreshed. So, even when right now is a little too much, going back to that internal place of refuge is comforting. It prepares and revives you until the next round of [mis]fortune comes your way.
I randomly thought about what one of my high school teachers once said the other day. She mentioned that there will always be someone better than you. Since then, I believed those words, engrained it within me, and let it be a factor at times insecurity made me lose my balance. But as I recalled that statement down the grocery store aisle strolling along, daydreaming, taking myself back to when I was younger and a lot more naive, I was almost angered. I’m sure she meant well, but being a firm believer in the power of self, I was like, “Eff that.” The only person who will ever be better than me is well, myself-an important proclamation during this period of transition. And to add on to momentum, I heard something worth jotting down in my trusty Moleskine, “Those who are certain of the outcome can afford to wait and wait without anxiety.” So I’ll let the universe do its thing but I won’t loosen my grip because these crazy dreams won’t make themselves.
I love it. Light, airy, delicate, feminin…
Her outfits are perfection.
(via beautifuldirtyglamorous)
Explains why I love riding and pushing myself on shopping carts down the aisle -_-
San Francisco, CA – U.S. based Filipino women’s rights groups are outraged over a recent article published by Marine Corps Times, a print and online publication that caters to the Marine Corps community.
According to its online website, Marine Corps Times claims to be an independent source for information on news affecting the Marines, and provides “quality, unbiased reporting on the important issues for the military community.” But an April 8 article written by staff writer Gidget Fuentes declaring that the Philippines is “known for their raunchy party atmosphere,” and “feature notorious red-light districts where alcohol and scantily clad women have attracted many Marines and sailors over the years” has offended Filipinos, especially women and children’s advocates. The article reports on the upcoming plans of the U.S. to deploy more troops to the Philippines over the coming the years, starting with 4,600 this Monday, April 16.
“Filipino women and children are the first to suffer anytime U.S. troops arrive in the Philippines,” says Raquel Redondiez, Chairwoman of GABRIELA-USA. “For generations Filipino women like Nicole have never seen justice against their American rapists, and orphaned Amerasian children have continually been abandoned by their American fathers.” Nicole was raped by U.S. marine Lance Corporal Daniel Smith in 2005, but did not serve time because of U.S. intervention despite being convicted by Philippine courts.
Irma Bajar, Chairwoman of New York-based Filipinas for Rights and Empowerment says “It is disgusting that P-noy’s administration would roll out the red carpet for thousands of U.S. military troops knowing full-well the commodification and abuse that Filipino women and children will suffer.”
Member organizations of GABRIELA-USA in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, and Seattle will be participating in a national day of action against U.S. military presence in the Philippines on April 16, 2012, when the Balikatan U.S. Philippine military exercises will begin.
GABRIELA, a Philippine based alliance of hundreds of Filipino women’s organizations have long protested against the Visiting Forces Agreement which have allowed for return of U.S. troops to the Philippines despite constitutional provisions banning foreign military bases in the Philippines. via sigawla
According to its online website, Marine Corps Times claims to be an independent source for…
(via taonglayas)
Wouldn’t it be a dream job to be a photojournalist for Lonely Planet (or somehow affiliated with NPR!)?! Anyway, two places are in India with another in nearby Tibet. A pilgrimage just made its way to my Life Bucket List.
Where did your friends go? I mean, you realize that the definition of a friend has become bastardized, especially since you were spit out into this cornfield maze people like to call “the real world”, but you could’ve sworn you had a few good ones left. Maybe you’ll check underneath the bed. Or…
Dolefully true and strangely hopeful.
Live music = pure bliss, and this band was spot on @Soda Bar last night.
