.png)
By Lauren Reuss
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!...” – Robert Burns, “To A Mouse”
Most have the privilege to enter undergrad with a common understanding. Every student- whether you went to the Paintsville Independent or Muhlenberg High- can bond over one shared, beautiful, and somewhat traumatic experience. This event I refer to is not the joys and woes of Friday night lights, standardized testing, or even the disappointments of a cafeteria lunch. While we may commiserate about them all, nothing compares to the connection forged through the struggle of “looking for the hidden meaning” in a high school English class. Both a disgrace to the author’s intent and a mind-scrambling activity where you must constantly guess whether your answer provides the depth and authenticity the teacher is seeking, we are all quite glad to see the dreadful situation of high school literature class in our rearview mirror.
Though our days of demonstrating emotional intelligence via the tips and tricks of SparkNotes are long behind us, the life lessons gained through these experiences still impact our character today.
My junior year, we plucky few who dared to take AP Language and Composition with one Mister “FoLeo Craveriii” picked up Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men and did our best to make heads and rabbit-tails of the story of George and Lennie as they worked their way through the dusty fields of the Salinas Valley. Had Mister been like most, he would have asked us to explain the impossibility of the American Dream and the idealization of friendship. But because he was a far better teacher, he had us first think of the novella through the framing of various themes. My favorite was hope.
Before cracking open the text, Mister had us read Burns’ “To A Mouse,” a poem most famously remembered for the adapted line “the best laid plans of mice and men are often go awry.” Then, as any good instructor would do to the class at 7:30 AM, he had us stand up and place ourselves on one side of the room. He said “You must either wish to know the end, or you must believe that your ignorance is bliss. However, you cannot simultaneously stand on both sides of the room.” The controlling teenager I was, I naturally chose to stand on the side of the room that would wish to know what the higher power had in mind.
At the end of our adventure, we were asked to choose our side again. After a moment’s debate, I changed my mind. If I had to choose, I would have been Lennie – my last thought on living off the fat o’ the land and not on the reality of the loss of my best friend and my life’s dream in the pull of the same trigger.
Like most college-aged folks, I would say I have changed significantly since high school. It’s not only that I’ve gained a pound (or twenty), or even that I’ve begun to study content I had never before had access to; the growth you undergo by the university experience is un-comparable to the maturity you reach in any other spectacle, phase, or period of life (though I have many more years to go, fingers crossed, and I’m sure those will correct me yet). Unlike high school, secondary education pushes you in a different manner. Where studying for tests, improving skills at practice, and worrying about the achievements on my resume were the most demanding things then, my biggest worries now include how to manage everything from before in addition to doing so with limited time, talents, treasures, and - of course - doing so in a way that clearly indicates I must the best candidate for a prestigious graduate program and the endlessly changing job market.
And while this is all worrisome to a degree, you find that this seemingly endless to-do list doesn’t amount to a hill of beans; it is quite the paradox. It matters, and yet it feels so insignificant when you compare this to the other arenas- like the time spent with others and taking opportunities on a whim- that life now holds. Though I can look in the mirror and see the same crow’s feet and smile a mile wide, the girl looking back is not the same person who stood chasing her reflection four years ago. Tempered by time and knowledge, the girl is more giving of her heart and guards her time with less animus. She has come to forgive the things that once shook her deeply, realizing that were tomorrow to pass and she to go with it, that the bitterness was not worth so much strength. I refuse to sweat today what will not matter tomorrow. No is no longer an answer and I won’t spend my efforts on meaningless tasks when my gifts could make a bigger difference here and now. I only wish I could tell the girl four years ago what I know now so she could exist without those burdens.
More than anything, I would go back and change my answer. Where I once thought ignorance would have prevented the hurt and misery, I now see that the onslaught doesn’t stop just because you are caught unaware. After living through what has been the most tumultuous year in recent history, I wish I had the ability to turn back the clock and grant myself the wisdom of what was to come. Your ignorance may temporarily alleviate, but the bliss is ultimately in vain. To ignore the facts of life is to miss out on the joys they behold. And while not knowing what is to come makes the wait all that much sweeter, hope cannot sustain the dream.
I wish I had just one more steaming cup of joe with friends over a table in our favorite local shop. In hindsight, I think that I would have taken the chance to celebrate one last girl’s night, or even to have gone to a crowded place and not given a second thought to how many bodies were crammed within the limits of four walls. I’d have invited all my favorite people out without stopping to think how people would feel about how long the person next to them has decided to quarantine. I’d take one more last-minute midnight road-trip for ice cream with the pleasure of dining somewhere other than my car. Every service activity, every helping hand, every volunteer event would have been completed with more gratitude and more zeal. If I had known a global pandemic would drastically alter my life, I would have attended one more in-person seminar, spent one more Sunday morning worshipping with the entire body of my church, or even hopped on a plane to visit relatives in distant states. I would have asked to see your smile and given you a hug for far longer than you could imagine.
And at the end of these painful days, I will await these promises of joy.
Lauren Reuss is a McConnell Scholar in the class of 2022. She is studying political science, economics, and philosophy at the University of Louisville.