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By Arsh Haque, Class of 2015
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| Arsh Haque |
It was a disliked, but necessary ritual, like drinking
Kool-Aid at the end of a Jonestown party.
We filed in with straight postures and dusty blazers; made
small talk around small circles covered with white tablecloths; and asked, “So,
what are you doing this summer?”
The emcee, fumbling his thumbs nervously, called the names of
local icons. Icons whose resumes were read and applauded, though everyone
already knew them. A long and tedious procedure that set the tone that yes,
this is just another McConnell Center event.
But it was not. And while everyone knew this fact, one did
not recognize it immediately. Rather, it sank in slowly, like squeezing honey
out of a Waffle House bottle. Praise, name, and recognition; one after the
other. And after enough names one’s mind began to wander, to remember the year
before – to remember what was to come.
All ten of them walk on to the stage, one at a time, and yet
all together. The same look of uncontrollable appreciation wavering in the air,
latching on to whatever face stood before the mic. Because no matter the
contempt or hate one may feel every other day as a Scholar, this is the night
of appreciation.
A night composed not of one evening, but four years. Starting
freshman year, watching a group of ambiguous seniors leave. More legends than anything.
But as new evenings come those leaving grow more intimate. They become friends.
You realize the people standing before you are no longer
characters in some poorly put-on play, but a reflection of where you’ll someday
be. Because you see a part of them that is in you too. And in the back of your
mind, while they’re carefully articulating what they’ve imagined all these
years, you begin to imagine your own.
At first it’s littered with the speech itself. Who will I thank.
Will I have a quote. What about the times. Oh god, I have to talk about that
one time in DC. Or that nervous breakdown when she was there to hold me my hand.
Or, no, I can’t bring that up, God – he’d hate me. Then it boils into something
more. You find yourself in a world of your own – laughing, and nearly crying
because your imagination feels so real. Then you begin to reflect – a more
lofty reflection than memories, as if you were in a seminar talking to
yourself.
Like, even though everyone is gracefully cupping glasses of
water and smiling at the tears collecting on the stage, it’s really a wake. An
open wake to the end of a time you can never return to. You watch it like
people slow down around a car crash to see if the victim survived. You place yourself
in their position, and ask what would I have done differently?
And in asking that question you at some point remember how
much you hated the program at one point or another and become very sad and
angry. Because in all that emotion you realize how important the program really
is. If it were really meaningless, could you hate it? All the bitter remarks
like those of a youth lost or deterred – oh, what it could have been! But you
realize you didn’t really fix it, or claim whatever good was there. Not fully
or as much as you liked, and you feel like you’ve already lost it all and done
everything wrong.
But that’s not where it ends. Because after the final speech
has been given, when these thoughts have carried home and you’ve exhausted your
mental faculties rehearsing the speech you will probably never
give, you lie in
bed, stare at your ceiling, and promise: I’m going to make the most of it – before it’s all gone.
Arsh Haque, of Elizabethtown, Ky., is a sophomore McConnell Scholar at the University of Louisville. He is studying political science and physics.