For me, it was just another afternoon. For the people gathered around the small chapel, it was an afternoon that marked a milestone in the lives of an enthusiastic couple.
A bundle of women were dressed in olive green, standing in front of the church doors with an assortment of daisies in their hands. The photographer ducked and dipped at different angles, shouting for the women to smile. Several meters away, on a bench, a well-dressed couple watched the scene with crinkled smiles.
It was a wedding — a small wedding, but one that touched the lives of many. Not only were the participants of the occasion influenced forever, but I was as well. Admittedly, I’m not what people would consider a lovey-dovey person. I never ‘ooh’ or ‘aah’ over weddings or spontaneous declarations of love. In fact, those things always make my hands sweat and my skin crawl, despite being raised in a family that values vocalized love.
So, that being said, it seems strange that the memory of a wedding would stay with me for several weeks. Right?
“It was an actual wedding at our chapel, on Grounds,” I explained to a friend from class. We were packing our backpacks, exhausted from our late study-session in Alderman. “It must’ve been after the ceremony. Instead of socializing with their family and friends, the couple just stared at the Rotunda. It felt like they were students.”
“They probably were at some point,” she said. “They’re probably alumni.”
So, why did that image stay with me for so long?
After that brief conversation and a little reflection, the answer became clear — the couple at the chapel was a representation of our future, of our lives after graduation. Whether we support the establishment of marriage, we will continue on with the key steps to our future — the career, the mortgage, the grandparents who chime in with declarations of ‘You’re not getting any younger!’ The couple at the chapel was a reminder that life does move forward after our years at the University. The couple was a reminder that while we cannot see that future, now, during these tiresome years, it’s there. Lastly, the couple was a reminder that even after graduation, we will still carry the ‘Wahoo’ spirit with us.
This was not something I realized — at least, not immediately.
As I pushed past that small steeple and headed into Alderman Library, I thought only about the responsibilities I had for the next few days — if I finish the multiculturalism reading, then I could review phonetic symbols for the rest of the night and dedicate the entire next day to writing my English essay. Right? Nowhere in that train of thought did I consider my future — whether it be my dinner plans, paying for the spring semester or even the admission process into graduate school. In order to survive as a hard-working student, I had to live in the now. My future beyond the current week was irrelevant to me.
True, I was mere meters away from that couple, but we were both at such different points in our lives. We were both focused on such different things and different priorities that we may as well have been four years apart, not four meters, but the sight nonetheless gave me a second wind that night. It was a silent reminder of why I am doing all of this — spending hours at a time in a dim, overcrowded library or cancelling social plans to complete just one more assignment. I am doing it to build a future and to lay a foundation for the rest of my life — just as this couple had, years before me.
With time, perhaps, I’ll be able to see that future ahead of me.
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