Leave Your Mark
I've lived in Columbia for over 10 years now.
It feels weird to write it that way. Because if you ask me I still feel a lot like the college student that got dropped off by her high school boyfriend, ready to get after making my way in the "real world".
There was a moment at the end of that day when my dorm mate Olivia and I were out in the quad, staring at the pillars as the orangey sidewalk and street lamps turned on. I don't remember what we talked about- but I remember feeling this burgeoning sense that my life, the part where I'm in charge and I have 100% say over what happens next, was finally truly in my hands.
I quickly threw myself into my academics, earning a place on the dean's list both semesters freshman year. Luckily though, I was exposed pretty early on to an international and broad-minded group of people through AIESEC- a student run organization that is focused on cultural and economic exchange as a means of creating the leaders we will need for a globalized economic future.
I dropped my over-achieving, people-pleasing, clout-chasing habits, and picked up the big questions: What is my mission in life? What kind of legacy do I want to leave behind?
I still remember fondly a few years back (who knows how many now that the pandemic has truly ruined any sense of time I previously had) I was driving through campus around 9 pm on a Wednesday night and I could see a gaggle of students leaving Trulaske and headed toward the Turner parking garage. I could hear laughter and accents and rancor and on a whim, called out a "Hey, AIESEC!" And I received a very excited but also confused "Hey, what?" in return, a common AIESECer call and response.
I remember feeling so good about the legacy I'd left behind. I remember feeling proud of how 'Peace and Fulfillment of Humankind's Potential' was still a siren song for some of the brightest and kindest minds I'd ever encountered.
I don't know what it means now that it's gone from Mizzou's campus.
I've been roller skating a lot lately. Not right this moment of course, but on most days around sunset you can catch me with my AirPods in, listening to Renaissance and skating like my life depends on it.
It kinda does. Not in the fatalist, immediately dead kind of way. But in that, my soul, my heart, my fire will die if I don't find something to feed it. And while Beyonce offers quite the feast with this most recent album, it's not enough without the skating.
Because my soul doesn't eat just anything. It needs passion and movement and sweat. It needs expression and exorcism. It needs to be burned off and shaped and reformed anew and it needs this ritual often.
One of my friends brought to my attention that all souls need this, and that her guru encourages bathing in the elements in order to purify and cleanse one's own energy.
When I want her to come out and skate with me, I've taken to asking if she'd like to take a wind bath. She often says yes.
I was out with my team for a lunch at Murry's a couple of weeks ago and remembered that I'd designed some of the posters hanging on the walls.
I stood up and took some photos of them, blurry because it's perpetually 9pm on a Saturday inside Murry's so it was quite dark, and then returned to the table thinking HARD about the mark I've left on Columbia.
Working at the Jazz Series was such a dream at the time, but somehow it didn't quite stay that way. Time has a way of moving us on, even when we're not finished. Even when the only thing we want is another moment in a moment with someone or out somewhere or doing something.
That role didn't turn to a start for the design career that I very much wanted at the time. But it was a wonderful way to introduce myself to this city with fresh eyes and it lead to me walking into CAT TV as well, another community centered organization. Which lead me to Access Arts and to Yoga Sol and Dog Master and, well, the list tumbles on.
Steve Jobs is often noted as having said something along the lines of, "You cannot connect the dots looking forward, only backward."
Everything that I've experienced in this town has certainly made me who I am, and is the home to a community of people who love on me as much as I love on them and thensome.
But as I have already come upon and blown right past my 10 year anniversary for living in Columbia, I can't help but wonder how I can use my hindsight to inform my future. How can I move toward a new dream and leave behind a gift that gives enough to be a legacy. A legacy that can outlast not just my life, but the lives of those after me. The question echoing in my mind: What about the next 10 years?
Maybe it's narcissistic to think that I can have that great an impact on the world in such a small amount of time. Or maybe it's only the first step to finding what brings me peace and guides me to fulfilling my potential.
The only advice I'd take from this whole entry? Bathe in the elements often.
That's what keeps your heart pure while you figure it out.
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