"On Endings, Beginnings, (and Learning...)" by Wyatt Tomlinson

     I never thought this academic year would be full of so many beginnings and simultaneous endings. We are all here at community college for one reason or another, so learning new things is expected, but nevertheless, the type of learning I experienced and the sheer amount of it weren’t. I lost friendships, reconnected and strengthened old ones, put some elements of the past in the past that were long overdue for retirement, had the privilege and honor of shaping a year of student governance here on campus with a wonderful team, investigated the changes of phase of materials, mathematically described mixtures of solutions, (somewhat) learned how to code in C++, learned about all the five main international relations theories plus others, and far more. It’s been a long year.

     It’s actually been a long time since I have had a year like this, not horrible because of outside larger-than-life circumstances or just ‘everything’s been great’, but instead a year shaped by the motion of social and academic life that sometimes introduces complications that teach you something about navigating them, yet not so derailing that they overshadow the entire year. The last time for this type of year was my senior year of high school, four years ago, and the time before that, my sophomore year, six years ago.

     Back in December, I wrote about (essentially) the value of time and making the most of it, and, like all of us, I wonder if I have lived up to my past words. But trying is the important part, as I have come to find out, especially in the social parts of life. Each path you end up taking (or the path that takes you, if we want to get philosophical) is so complicated, but you do take away something important, so in the end no path is truly ‘wasted’. Sometimes, even, paths cross or turn around, and you have to remind yourself that that important event or time with a person could have gone in a far different direction if not for circumstances you never saw coming. It’s a humbling experience, but perhaps that’s precisely because it is a beautiful one.

     Since I’m starting to get philosophical, I might as well commit: some people think events in life happen for a reason. Now, bearing in mind there is no stipulation, either stated or implied, about the manner or source of those reasons. I’m personally not sure. But a lot of my friends think this is the case. My sister from Georgia does as well. Yes, I’m not sure, but that’s from a purely philosophical standpoint stemming from the nature of reality. But retrospectively, it all makes perfect sense to me. We construct narratives for a reason—to make sense of our lives, to create meaning. Those paths created in a nonlinear fashion, while in the moment extraordinary and random, solidify in retrospect clarity of the past that is brighter than at the present. In this way, perspectives can change. Endings, or rather in retrospect the shift of paths but in the present deeply-felt change, are a perfect example. The “end” of a path, just like time, simply signals the beginning of another. And what may be one person’s ending in this dynamic system we call life is another’s beginning.

     Graduation, continuing education at a new institution while someone else stays behind and awaits their transfer, is a perfect example of this. Place-wise, perhaps it is an ending for people in multiple different avenues—saying goodbye to those who knew them up until now, saying goodbye to the person graduating, for example—, but everything written above means an ending is not an absolute final. We have learned so much here, and with many different tutors graduating in just a few weeks, many people—at least I—know one thing: those paths we look back on, what we call memories, will always be here. They will always be here because of the people we choose to remember and the people who change our lives. My interviewees (the finalized transcript of which may appear in the August or September issue) for this issue, Daniela and Julie, are the best of this dynamic. Everyone who graduates has learned so much in so many ways, and the two of them exemplify that. Each has so many more qualities that will carry them forward. As do all of us.

     As Dr. Deb Borofka often says, “Onward and upward.” As this past year has taught me (again), onward may not be straight, but it is upward. I see that all around, and especially here in the Reading and Writing Center. It’s a microcosm of the best of this campus (the macrocosm). Onward and upward, indeed.