Worth Fighting For

My new tattoo! 

So here it is...the end of winter break.  The end of a fulfilling yet tumultuous three and a half weeks.  In a few hours, I will be leaving my home in Texas and jetting back to Chicago, where a new quarter starts - the penultimate quarter of my college experience.

Right before retiring to my room to write this blog, I had finished watching The Two Towers, the penultimate chapter of Lord of the Rings.  A lot of people overlook this middle movie in favor of the first chapter or the last one, which is undoubtedly my favorite.  However, I think the greatest speech in the whole trilogy is Sam's speech at the end of this movie.  And right before starting my last winter quarter at Northwestern, it was exactly what I needed to hear.

"I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are...It's like in the great stories Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn't want to know the end, because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad happened?  But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t. Because they were holding on to something, that there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo.  And it's worth fighting for."  

We give up on ourselves so frequently because it's easier in some ways.  It's easier to let go of responsibility and believe things will never get better.  It's easier to stay in a rut because then you don't have to expend the energy to get yourself out.  You don't have to face anything.  You don't have to keep fighting.  You can just blame fate, be bitter and sink into a whole that even though it's dark, it's comfortable.  

I cherish my college experience greatly.  But it's been hard.  When I daydreamed about college before going, the dreams were a lot like my experience has recently become.  In the dreams, I was carefree and happy.  I was surrounded by friends.  I was desired by tons of people.  And I felt whole, happy, vivacious and attractive.  In those dreams I was shaping the world because I had never known a version of myself that wouldn't or even couldn't.  I had never known a version of myself that had lost my creative energy, my self-confidence or the belief that I was not only attractive but overall worthy.  For the first two years of college, I stopped believing in the good.  Perhaps I believed it existed in the world but I didn't think it existed for me.  Why?  Well I didn't have any logical reason to believe it didn't.  I just wanted to think that way so that I wouldn't have to fight.  If I believed that I didn't deserve good, I wouldn't have to face myself, fight away the pain and go after it.  

But somewhere a little after the halfway point of my college career, this whole outlook began to change.  I was flushed with the presence of a few amazing people, some of whom I'd already known and others who I was getting to know.  Together we formed a band, not quite with music, but with a different kind of rhythm - one I needed to revitalize all my organs.  My connection with these people nursed me back to health.  I still have my moments of failure, feeling like I need to turn around and give it all up.  But I've progressed on a curvy but consistently upward sloping trajectory.  I'm getting stronger.  And though I know I do have a great deal of inner resilience, I have them to thank.  

I'm going back to a rich life, one that these people and I have created together.  I'm going back to a vibrant trampoline, one on which we will all jump and bounce and fly sky high, with the safety net of our friendships to catch us not if, but when we fall.  I'm going back to win it all - not just the world outside of me in Chicago, but the world within me.  Because I'm not quite ready to know the end.  But when I get there, I want to feel like I made it happen.  

To all of you returning to school with me this weekend, I hope you come back with your spirits high and your souls alive - even with the cold weather threatening to bring us down.  There is no cold we can't push through.   There is no dark we can't shine light into.  There's just life and a curve that we can never quite understand while it's happening, but that we can look upon after with a greater and hopeful understanding.