Imagine the Unimaginable

Every day when we wake up, it’s a brand new day. Fresh, brand new, straight out the box, new car smell, new shoe smell new. A famous quote by Eleanor Roosevelt goes something like this: “Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That’s why we call it ‘The Present’.” We have no idea what a new day is going to bring. But the unbelievable possibilities that a new day can bring are wondrous. What if a new day brought something so new that you couldn’t even comprehend why it was happening? Something so magical, enchanting, powerful, influential, and utterly amazing that your heart stops……………………………but only for a moment…………

If you wake up tomorrow morning, and someone presents you with a choice, would you listen? What if someone presented to you a crystal ball? The very idea of it is a joke. But what if it isn’t a joke on this morning? They say, “You may look into the crystal ball for a glimpse of your future in 20 years.” Would you look? If you like what you see, and you believe in fate, you’ll most likely go on your way with a little skip in your step. What if you don’t like what you see…..but you don’t even know that you don’t like what you see because, interestingly enough, that’s not you yet. It’s you in 20 years. A completely different reality, life, and moment. If your future puts you in a precarious and unfathomable situation, would you start to change who you are and the actions that people judge you by? Or would you just go on your way? Would you look?

If you wake up tomorrow morning, and you find an Aladdin-lookin’ genie lamp waiting for you, you’re going to rub it right? Of course you are, because it’s there, it’s cool looking, and there’s no way that a genie would come out of it…..right? What if one did? Sure, you would be scared half to death and maybe call the police, but you would probably catch your breath eventually. He (or She) says what you’ve always dreamed of hearing, “I’m your genie, and I am here to grant you 3 wishes.” What would your 3 wishes be? Would it be to cure the incurable? Superpowers? Infinite amount of money? How about good health for your family for generations? No more unnecessary violence on Earth? Success to your friends and family in all of their future endeavors? What would your 3 wishes be?

Restart. Refresh. Redo. If you wake up tomorrow morning and you’re presented with a “redo” button, would you press it? When I say redo, I mean redo a day, a moment, a time, a minute. Was there ever a period in your short life thus far that you wish you could just repeat knowing that you could change the outcome to exactly how you perceived it should have turned out to be? I certainly do. But, before you press that button, think about the ramifications of the action you’re about to partake in. If you go back and change what has made you who are today, will you be wiser? Or just more naïve? Maybe you would be better off or maybe not. Would you press the button?

You love, we love, and the world loves. There are people we would go to the ends of the Earth for and back 5 times over without hesitation. If you wake up tomorrow morning, and you are presented with an ultimatum that is so inexplicable, what would you do? In this case, you wake up to a world that is in ruins after an apocalyptic event. Everyone has vanished, but you somehow have the power to bring back to life one person that you can spend the rest of your life with. Who would it be? Can your mind comprehend the incomprehensible? Your mother, father, brother, sister, daughter, son……….. girlfriend, boyfriend, wife or husband? Who would you choose?

We all imagine the unimaginable. We have stints of daydreaming when we’re out with friends, in class, or just sitting down. We’re flying, we’re with the ones we love, we’re in love, we’re rich with emotion that no amount of money can provide. We are in another place. A place that is far, far, far away from this reality that we call Life and this home that we call Earth. Imagine the unimaginable

Feeling Removed

Lately, I’ve been thinking about how removed I’ve been feeling from the university as a whole. This is my third year here, and I’m beginning to get the feeling it’s about to start being time for me to begin to remove myself from the university so that I’m not feeling too attached when I leave. I’ve had a lot of good moments here and I’m sure there are still a lot left for me to experience, but I also have to be realistic and remind myself that this isn’t going to last forever. The college experience is one that people say is the best time of your life blah blah and that you will never want to leave. I’ve definitely had those emotions fill me up during my time here, but I was afraid that I really would never want to leave and move on. Now, I can rest assure that I will be able to graduate next year without having any regrets, or doubts.

I remember coming here in the Fall of 2007 and never wanting to leave during my freshmen or sophomore years. After having a good, fun, wrap-up of the summer in my hometown of Chapel Hill, NC, I couldn’t think of anyone who was more excited to finally leave their parent’s house than I was. There was not a doubt in my mind that I was ready to move on to living on my own, with thousands of my peers within feet of me constantly. I’ve always had a distant type of relationship with my family. Me being a first generation American, a lot of things that appear as normal to me, will never appear normal to my parents. Of course I love them to death, but I honestly felt like my time with them was nearing an end. This same feeling is beginning to return to me now as a junior at UNCW. I’m not saying UNCW is like my parents, but this university has already taught me so much about life and I will be taking lessons from this place far into my future.

Graduation is coming up for a lot of my close friends, and it’s going to be interesting to see what life is going to be like next year. I’ve created a lot of genuine friendships with a lot of upperclassmen that are graduating next year, and I’ve never actually thought about what life would be like without them. Of course, as the months draw closer to May, the thought returns to my mind almost daily. I’ve grown to love a lot of these people, and I really hope that these relationships aren’t forgotten. We joke about weddings and what life will be like in the future, and it will be quite the story to see how we all turn out. Every once in a while, I have to stop and remind myself where we are, and what we’re doing, because there’s no way that something like this can last forever. I realize that, but sometimes it’s nice to remind myself just how good of a feeling this moment with them feels and how badly I want to catch that feeling and open it up with them years from now.

It’s funny, there are moments that we have in life that we never ever want to end, yet we somehow have ended up saying that phrase multiple times by now. I feel like the best times of our lives are ahead of us. Yes, college is a wonderful, traumatizing, exciting, nerve racking, tumultuous, painful, joyous, heart wrenching experience that teaches us so much about life. We’re exposed to all types of demographics and backgrounds that it’s almost impossible to not learn something new every day. I’m feeling removed from the university, but there’s no way that I’m going to forget who’ve I’ve met, the experiences I’ve had, the vast amounts of intangible skills that I’ve acquired and the moments that I’ve shared with the people around me.