The Question Remains Unanswered

I am listening to Blackberry Molasses by Mista. I will always remember that song because that was a song that I listened to all the way to the Olympics in Atlanta. I guess that is why I am so attached to that song. It is quite sad actually - but it was a big hit. "Blackberry Molasses, one of the things that never change, you gotta keep pushin on, the sun don't rain all the time, there's gonna be some heartache and pain." In one sense - you'd think that it was supposed to be uplifting, but it's actually very sad. As I began to let the song penetrate my ears, I began to reflect on my 3 and 1/2 yrs at Howard. They haven't been all that bad. I've had some good times. I will forever remember trips to the Cafe freshman year and waking up for breakfast when there was 23 inches of snow on the ground. I will remember the night before I moved out of Drew Hall, when I spent like 4 hours with three associates of mine schooling them on old school. I also will never forget how many times me and few others watched Queens of Comedy - not on a videotape, but on a computer and would constantly recite the lines like they were lines from Hamlet or Waiting for Godot. And who could forget Pimp Harder: the homecoming fashion show, which out of all of the HU fashion shows was the best.

Sophomore year was a cool - I lived in a dorm that was a bus ride away from campus, make that a shuttle ride away from campus. I remember being late for class several times waiting for the shuttle and almost being late to my Econ final because the shuttle decided to take its jolly ole time. My dinners that year consisted of KFC, Pizza Hut, Burger King, and Popeye's - ah heart disease, colon cancer, prostate cancer all rolled into one, not to mention hypertension, potential heart attack, high blood pressure, diabetes, and other potential life threatening diseases. I never was too much of an Adams Morgan fan thought even though all my time was pretty much spent going to get food from those places, which happen to be in Adams Morgan. I also remember when me and some of my associates decided that we were going to purchase Christmas gifts and we pulled names and we had to submit lists of the stuff we wanted. That was funny. I ended up buying Sex & The City for the person and filling the box full of that crap you fill boxes with when you don't want stuff to get damaged, partly because the person had originally said that they didn't want anything. It got a laugh out of everyone. Sophomore year seemed to whiz by faster than any other year. I guess the saying is true - time waits for no man.

Junior year is forever etched in my mind. A lot of shocking things went down that year, ones that will remain between those of us who witnessed them. I resided in the Towers, which is supposedly the creme de la creme of dorms here on campus. I mean it is for the most part - the best dorm I've stayed in out of the three. That year I finally began telling many people when I would leave town. I have a proclivity for not letting people know when I leave - which is good and bad. Good because I can go whenever I feel like it; bad because if something happens, then who'll know. One of my associates sent me a text message and I quote: "I'm glad you made it, thanks for telling me. And it only took you 3 years to let someone know. We are making progress." I think junior year is settled in my mind moreso than the other years because it has been the most recent and because of all the stuff that went on that year. I will forever remember waking up at 3 in the morning and driving an associate of mine to the airport. I will also remember driving up to Virginia for a step show - that was a 4 hour drive back & forth. I finally was able to put miles on my car. Well, some, my car still needs to be broke in. I think that was a testing of the relationships many of us had with each other.

Senior year - well that's where I am now - and I've made many decisions regarding some associates of mine, which has been discussed in many posts and that topic is getting rather tiresome and repetitive. I was having a discussion with an associate of mine over the summer, and we were discussing Hurricane Katrina and we somehow got on the topic of life and moving on and what will happen once we leave Howard. We talked about change, which really made me think wow, senior year is fastly approaching and I'm going to be leaving Howard and starting something new. I can still keep in touch with certain people, but it won't be the same. I mean these are people who I've hung out with over the past 3 years and we've gone through so much together. We began to analyze how we all had come together freshman year. She then said something that was quite profound and this is not exact, but parphrased: "I think eventually later on in life we will learn why we all came together." It was rather striking because I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason so we all came together as close associates for a reason. It is still a profound and striking statement and I truly believe she and I (don't laugh if that's bad grammar) and others will get the answer to that question later on in life. But for now, the question remains unanswered.