College is like fingerprints. No two people match in their experience, and as I take my last pass by The Convo as a student, I wonder what I have gained from Ohio University that others did not.
What did I miss that others grasped?
It is just the first of a series of questions that I ask of my soul, cobblestoned with experiences, memories and dreams of this brick kingdom. These questions must be answered, yet this is not a test I can study for. One week is all that remains after four years. No more time exists for skipped classes, pushed-back responsibility and tackles into the snow. The real world is not the same.
Those things I learned - what are they? I must have picked up something along the way - all I see is a tattered softball shirt, some newspaper articles and a piece of paper that people signed. I wonder if those things will make any difference in my next life.
Some people think there are certain things you must accomplish while on campus. There aren't - at least not the physical things like trying Goodfella's pizza or D.P. Dough. They are wonderful in and of themselves, but you will not remember how you enjoyed your carbohydrates after school.
What matters are that we feel and that we try. Sometimes we're right. Sometimes we're wrong. Sometimes it's great. Sometimes it hurts. But these moments only amount through the two E's - emotion and effort. They both need to be strong. One doesn't work without the other. When the emotion is gone, the effort will not be made.
How did I learn that? By overpriced books, through past lovers? The debate persists whether I picked up more knowledge in Scripps Hall or the conversations that took place on the walks home from there. I think the professors of my world taught me more outside of class than in it.
Did I learn because I wanted to know, or did I simply desire the ability to prove people wrong? It might make me feel better to know that I have been in a certain place before - that I can do something someone else can't. Is that all these skills I've supposedly acquired turn into once I have left this place? Maybe it is not getting the best job, the best car, the best house but rather just having the feeling that you are the best at something.
Five years down the line, I could understand. Perhaps in 10 years, I'll forget only to be reminded in my old age.
As the warm weather melts my frosted heart, I realize that things will change and maybe I did not want them to. Friends move away. Casual calls become more and more infrequent. I can no longer walk down the hall to say hello to a companion. I might not see them again.
Some things are easier to get past than others.
I just do not think I am ready, though I know I must take on this newest challenge - a challenge far greater than that of exams or term papers. Now the naive, scrawny kid, who once filled his days with playing Bond in Ryors Hall, tossing a baseball outside Jefferson and romanticizing the future in Riverpark, must become a man.
Maybe I will come back to OU and reminisce with those who will have known me less and less. Maybe I will turn my back on it as I have done in the past. I must wait to see if the emotion meets the effort.
The editors agree, Pfahler has done a lot of good work for The Post. Send him e-mail at eric.pfahler@ohiou.edu
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Eric Pfahler
