This past week I had two tests on Friday, less than a week that finals officially start at the University of Arkansas. Not a night went by when the last thought of the day wasn’t, “Albert, tomorrow is going to be fine. You can get through it.” Not a morning started when the first thought of the day was, “How am I going to get through it today?!” I could just feel the insurmountable stress piling up on top of me. I couldn’t breathe because everywhere I went, my nemesis was laughing in my face; telling me I couldn’t beat it. Berating, condescending, in a word – dominating. It was as if I was cursed and the same way I yell, “F— the Yankees!” I was yelling, “F— School!”
Wait a second. Beratement? Curses? F— the Yankees?
I texted my friend as soon as I had this epiphany. Like a vocab question on the SAT, “School is to me as Yankees to the Sox” (well you know, pre-2004 Red Sox World Championship era).
What I love about sports: it’s symbolism to life. Like the light at the end of the tunnel finally opening up, I remember: the underdog will overcome. Maybe not glamorously and with all limbs in-tact but eventually the tides will turn. Not one thing in this world dominates forever. The dinosaurs died. The Ice Age melted.
I will graduate.
