Of Sunsets and Sunrises
I wrote some words leading up to my graduation containing some of my thoughts about it. I am sharing them here to document them. I’ll be writing more soon.
As my college graduation is approaching, I’ve been thinking a lot about sunsets.
People measure their life with their successes, failures, and friendships. I’ve been measuring mine in sunsets as of late. They represent the ending, the final bow, the curtain call. They are beautiful, soulful, and painfully short-lived. It’s called a “Golden Hour” for a reason.
The blessing of growing up outside isn’t wasted on me. When you are a kid, you forget to cherish the moments you have with your family, your friends. To the child, this is Life! Life is about playfulness, about learning who you are and how you exist in this wide and wonderful world. I am seldom regretful, but I regret that I forgot to enjoy those sunsets. For those sunsets are the ones I remember the least, much like the friends and classmates of a time gone by. They are all out in the world now. I hope they remember the sunsets.
Driving home from soccer practices in the fields of the Texas Hill Country, I regret missing out on the hues of the spectacular Central Texas sunset. The way those sunsets represented a coming of age story, an ending of my childhood innocence, and the expanding world I was becoming a member of.
In High School, I witnessed too many sunsets to count, each spectacular and unique. The late summer mornings and evenings spent on the blacktop as a member of the marching band and the fall and winter evenings as the color would fade from the world faster and faster with each passing day. These sunsets impressed upon me the wonder the world held, and how fleeting the time I had on it was. I spent many more sunsets playing basketball and frisbee and all types of sports with my closest friends. It was at this point in my life that I truly began to appreciate the symphony from the stage. Music in my life has always been a central point -- from playing in the marching band to the blissful escape a good running playlist offers.
Attending college in the flattest portion of the state gave me some of the most stunning sunsets to date. Texas A&M is so blessed by its ugliness that it retains an odd and quirky beauty. Having little to do in town means you give everything to the university and surrounding community. Finding my people didn’t take long, and the few years I had with them was more special than everything. Even while surrounded by people I loved, I made sure to cherish the quiet solitude of a campus settling down for the night, bathed in pastels as the sun slipped below the horizon.
Sunsets take on different meanings in my life, at different points. I struggled with loneliness throughout my undergrad, some of which induced by my own doing. I’ve been sad, tired, and burnt out. I always knew this chapter would come to an end, and be shrouded at the dusk and end in its own sunset, slipping into the twilight. I am forever grateful to have even made it this far. I desperately await the sunset, waiting for the oncoming darkness that ushers in the end of one chapter and the beginning of another. The heavens are flush with spectacular hues, each more vibrant than the next. It is the most beautiful part of the day, of the experience, of this chapter. It is the most bittersweet, heartbreaking, and spectacular moment in this edition. This sunset will surely make me ugly cry, as to achieve this is to prove that I am in fact capable. This sunset will make me smile, will make me miss my Mom and my Dad and lovely sisters, just as the last sunset did. Instead of the childhood nest I once left, I’m leaving the last semblance of familiarity behind, in search of greater meaning and purpose. This sunset represents so much to me, and it is a blessing to live every second of it. The twilight after the sunset, that naive and foolish uncertainty of whether there will be light ever again, the restless sleep before a big trip, the bleary-eyed sunrise beckoning a newborn day. The prospect of the next chapter and the new footnotes and the plot twists and the accomplishments and the failure and all that lay in between fill me with an anxious energy. I am anxious to move on and accomplish greater things and I am anxious about moving on and finishing this chapter.
Running in a college town is inherently dangerous. There are more drivers actively looking at their phones than there are drivers being attentive. Running in a Texan college town is inherently sweltering with heat. There are months where the Heat Index refuses to drop below: “Broil.” Sunsets and the subdued twilight provide the perfect venue to experience the true joys of Texan living. The pitter-patter of sneakers on cement and gravel, the last call of birdsong and the first call of the cicada. The smell of freshly cut grass and honeysuckle. The sun peaking through the oak and cedar branches swaying in the breeze. The campus slowing down for the day, the thousands of students and faculty retiring for the evening. The evening traffic is dying away. The sun, having fought a battle so beautiful that my phone’s camera roll is brimming with evidence of its warfare, is slipping below the peaceful horizon. The air-conditioning units are all you can hear now, the music in your ears having paused itself minutes before. You stop, and glance around you. The canvas landscape is stark and brutal looking -- harsh tans and browns, interrupted by glorious cracks of light. It’s welcoming and foreboding and exciting and terrifying. You will always miss this place, regardless of distance.
There are sunsets in my life that I have yet to forget, and there are sunsets in my life I have surely yet to experience. They all have a similar theme -- making the most of the limited time I have with those who I love the most, doing what I love. These daily finales, routine as they can be, still make up the most important part of the day — the End.
