I’ve started this post a few times in my head now, and I just cannot seem to find the words. I’ve struggled on how to write about something so hard…but my entire life, I’ve found release and comfort in hand writing my seasons of struggles. (I actually dread the day my children find my journals. I know their reading of my pitiful life will lead them to believe I was a sad, sad soul rather than the one who leads a happy life!) I know I need to write this down. And I also know that I hope, as I always do, that these words would speak to more than one.
I refuse to talk at length about the dreaded virus that has killed so many lives, but also so many dreams. I don’t care to comment on how this is the cause of our heartache, or possible political reasoning, or whether or not I agree. This piece is only about my Ouachita.
There is so much I feel as if I should say…I could talk about the people I came to know and love these past four years, my roommates, teachers, and friends. I could mention the books I read in the English department. I could sing praises for the work I watched happen through Tiger Tunes and the men and women of the Ouachita Student Foundation. I could reminisce on the many stories I had the honor of telling through last year’s yearbook. I could talk about the decades of sisterhood I joined through the women of EEE. The hours of service I placed my hand in through Tiger Serve Day. The laughter behind the door of the president’s office, shared between us workers and Mrs. Tracey, Dr. Bobby K. Henley, and our wonderful leader Dr. Sells. The tiny conversations in the hall. The stories I heard from alumni the summer before my senior year. The hours I spent in the chair in front of Marsha Whalen’s desk, my grandma and best friend.
But mostly I want to talk about how much I love and have loved Ouachita…as if she were the oldest of friends. Last semester, I was honored to speak as the student representative at the annual Stepping Up For Ouachita banquet in Little Rock. I told the story of this past homecoming weekend. I walked the audience through my morning, getting ready for Homecoming Court and madly running around in anticipation for the night’s Tiger Tunes double header. Throughout the entirety of my senior year, one prayer had been consistent: “Oh Lord, prepare me to leave.” On that morning of homecoming, I put my lipstick on as tears rolled down my cheeks, memories of my freshman year homecoming refusing to subside. It was all catching up with me…this whole “year of lasts” thing. Time had moved so quickly. That weekend, the silent prayer became a spoken one. In my speech, I told the room that in order to contain my emotions, I had to literally speak out loud “Prepare me to leave, oh Lord,” as if I were speaking it into fruition. The silent stuff wasn’t cutting it! As I walked off the football field with my dad and a bouquet of flowers, I whispered it to myself. As I danced in the finale of Tunes, I said it to myself over the roar of the crowd and confetti cannons. As I watched the house lights come up, after saying “See you next year!” to the audience, I whispered it again.
It has been a painful prayer of mine.
As the year has gone by, I’ve actually felt J prepare me leave. This came through forms of academic exhaustion and near-surrender, frustration in circumstance, excitement for life after graduation. Day by day, I felt and saw my preparation. I thanked Him in my journal…You provide circumstances for me to realize I’m ready and will be prepared to leave Ouachita. (February 12, 2020) I even wrote out a list entitled “Sweet Plans + Dreams For Life After Ouachita! The things that will keep me excited and not sad,” which included things such as leisure reading and learning how to cook through Julia Childs’ “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.”
However, on March 13, 2020, when I left Ouachita as a residential student for the very last time, I was not prepared.
In my life, Ouachita has been more than university. Ouachita has been a lot of things to me…it was where my dad worked for years; it was where my band concerts were, where I’d hide in the wings when I didn’t have a xylophone part and laugh with the drumline; it was where I went to summer camp with my best friends, Nick and Jack…a music camp, the only kind of camp you would ever catch Addy Goodman enjoying herself at; it was where I learned how to ride my bike and Dad pulled my front teeth; it was where my grandma worked and I loved to visit; it was where I came every year for Tiger Tunes, at least twice in one week, sometimes three counting the livestream. Really, Ouachita is the one location, building, place that I consider a literal friend. However that would work. But she is, isn’t she? She is deserving of a personal pronoun…because she is more than a collection of buildings, classrooms, and sidewalks. She has a personality, really. Of course, it’s made up of the shared personalities of the people who call Ouachita home, the shared mission we’ve all dedicated our time there to achieving. But in all honesty, Ouachita is one in herself…an old friend.
That’s why I found it hard to leave Cone Bottoms that Friday afternoon. At the time, we thought we were coming back, but sadly, I knew better. And oh, isn’t it the most heartbreaking feeling to know the ending before the end? Those moments before the fall, the goodbye. It reminded me of a break-up, when you know it’s coming but you just want to sit in the old just a second more? Or the night before moving out of a dorm…when you’re sitting on a couch surrounded by boxes of dishes and t-shirts, and you’re trying to go on with conversation as if everything wasn’t about to change in a single day. It almost feels like the end of a friendship. Or at least a shift in one. I feel as if I’m mourning the loss of a lifelong friend.
I told the audience last semester that while I was praying desperate prayers for preparation, I was learning to be so thankful for the people who have made Ouachita a place I cry over, a place I pray for the Lord to prepare me to leave. I was thanking them, as most of them are donors, for helping make that true. So I guess right now, in this heart wrenching season of stolen goodbyes, that is the thought that needs to run through my head, instead of the painful sadness that’s taking place now. My prayer needs to change: Lord, I have left Ouachita. Thank you for the time you allowed me there. Continue to prepare me for my next line in life.
I know that I would have left Ouachita eventually. And when I’m being honest with myself, I know that May 9 would have been just as hard as March 13. I wish that my goodbye to Ouachita would have been how it was supposed to be…slow and celebratory, special and with my Ouachita family. Right now, I’m struggling with seeing Ouachita at all. It feels to be almost a graveyard to me; when I see Ouachita or think of Ouachita, I see what could’ve been…one last sunny and tearful Tiger Serve Day with Mrs. Judy. One last muddy and exhausting Tiger Traks. The golden Honor’s stole. A thesis presentation. One last visit to Grandma’s office as a student. One last publishing of the Signal. But for now, we’re in the process of mourning what was lost, and focusing on what was given. That is hard to do. But that is all that can be done.
To Ouachita…as I’ve said at every speaking event I ever had the honor of opening my big mouth at, you gave me friends who became family, and a dorm that became home. And I will never in my life forget what we had here.
“The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.” Psalm 16:6
Xo. A
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