Brady C. Mallory

As a writer, I try to think of a beginning, develop a story and find an organic ending. I have been thinking about a way to end this sometimes controversial column that has been an intricate part of my senior year at SDSU. Lately, my mind has been wandering back to my days in high school when my life was homecoming games, cruising the one-ways, trips to Perkins after choir concerts, running the school newspaper and eating with friends at Steve’s Pizza. The panic of leaving it all still seems very tangible. I remember thinking that nobody would know me the way my high school friends would, and that this precipice known as change would end life as I knew it.

Life went on, and four years later, here I am. I recall wise author Thomas Wolfe saying, “You can’t go home again.” Thomas is very succinct in this assertion. My hometown seems a little bit more unfamiliar to me with each return. I am finding that I have a hard time connecting with the people I knew in high school because we are fundamental strangers. Four years have passed, and we have changed. We have gone in different directions.

Truthfully, I never wanted to spend my college years at SDSU. Only at the behest of my father did I succumb to the yellow and blue environment that would eventually become my alma mater. I have spent much of my life disagreeing with him, but this time he was right. SDSU was the exact place for me, and I feel that developmentally, I would be five years behind without the accomplishments I have made here.

I recall the book of Mark’s Jesus. Jesus goes into the wilderness, which is full of hunger, thirst and testing: the unknown. It is also a place of transformation, a time to receive change. In some cases, the change we do not want is the change we need to set us free. A half becomes a whole.

More important than a location, relationship or career advancement is the change we notice in ourselves. When we are not looking, when we stop to breathe, when we ask our reflection, “Who am I today?” we begin to see the person we were always meant to be. Any life is full of happiness, sadness, discovery, shame and redemption. A destination is merely a place where you are going, but is it worth the trip if you do not pay attention to the journey? My mom, my hero, says life is all about the journey.

For freshmen, sophomores, juniors, seniors and beyond, I recommend embracing every facet of life that presents itself to you. On the last day of high school, a mentor, Shirley Morgan, said, “This life is dead.” I get what Shirley means: it is time to move on and move forward.

My life for the past four years has been an awakening to a strength of which I was blissfully unaware. It is incredibly painful leaving behind the University Program Council after three years, as is saying goodbye to a handful of faces that have shaped my college experience. This summer, KEYC in Mankato, Minn., is my new life – a life that I am both excited and nervous for. It is a change that is bashert, – Hebrew for the etymology of destiny, or fate.

Thank you Collegian staff for your hard work and dedication to a successful newspaper. I am pleased that I was a part of such a fantastic publication. Thank you to everyone who has read this all year, and I always appreciated the nice things you would say to me if you saw me somewhere. If you want to follow my adventures, check out my blog at http://mcom225-bmallory.blogspot.com. Finally, to those whom I have offended to the point of hate mail – you know who you are – I leave you with this heartfelt departing thought: Get over it. I was hilarious and you are crazy.