Good snowy morning (it is after midnight as I write this) from Pennsylvania,
Earlier today I participated in the winter commencement event for the College of Education and the College of Liberal Arts here at Bloomsburg University, where I serve students as a professor in the English Department and as the director of a professional writing program. All too often we are provided platitudes about how this is a beginning, yes, a commencement, but today I listened to one of my colleagues provide one of the most inspirational addresses I think I have ever been blessed to hear. She asked them what they were going to do with what they had, the foundation they have been provided. She used a great blend of her own story and some thoughts about Sherlock Holmes. It was one of the few times in my life that I believe I heard something worth taking away from the event. Thank you, #Dr. #Marion #Mason. After the service, as is often the case, I had an opportunity to meet some parents, to see some former students and to think about what they have accomplished, and to imagine what their lives might become. That was part of Dr. Mason’s message . . . what will the adjectives you use someday be?? She encouraged them to see themselves as more an merely one of the graduates.
This week I have been required to think about that again: where will our lives go? How will we become the person we do? What are the things that will influence our paths and help us understand who we are? What I know is what we often think about ourselves and what others think about us might be quite different. I have had the amazing gift of having a friend in my life since I was four years old. His mother and my mother were close friends; his father and my father were church men together and throughout my childhood, the three kids in their family and the three in my family (of which I was one) did most everything together. I cannot imagine what my childhood might have been without them in it.
Peter, my life-long, and best, friend, and I had the most difficult conversation this week. He has been diagnosed with ALS and it seems quite aggressive. What a terrible thing to hear. He is such an amazing man. He accomplished things that I have only dreamed of. He married his high school sweetheart and they have raised two phenomenally amazing children. I so respect what they have done together. When we talked on the phone this past week, we both cried. As I write this I cannot help again that the tears begin to flow. While I have struggled most of my adult life with Crohn’s and I have had some difficult periods, never have I been given such a terrible diagnosis. I wish I could take this from him. I feel so helpless and incapable at this point. I can only pray that whatever path he is on that he is allowed dignity and a minimum amount of pain. I cannot imagine what he faces, but I wish him comfort and some sense of how amazing he is. I had actually sent him a letter about a year and a quarter ago. I am so glad that I shared how important his friendship was to me.
As I try to finish my grading, I am also preparing a winter term class which actually begins in merely hours. There is so much to do and so little time, but that seems how my life is. The last few days I have found myself turning inward again. All too often I find that I am wanting to be around others and be involved in things, but then I find these times where I would be much happier alone. I am reminded that Lydia would get frustrated with me at times where I was always going or had things going on. She would say, in her Austrian accent, “My-chal! Is their anyone you don’t know?? It’s disgusting!!” Those of you who know her can hear her. I think I want to merely disappear for a while. While I do not think it can happen this week with 19 hours with the Skype interviews and other things at school, and then the holidays, maybe that will be my New Year’s resolution to become a hermit.
Well . . . with every ending there is a beginning and that is how the morning started. Thanks for reading.
Michael
thewritingprofessor55 
I apologize greatly for your sorrow. I understand what it is like to hear that a loved one has become extremely ill. My Aunt has Lou Gehrig’s disease. I remember when she was diagnosed we did not think she would live to see the next two years. It was an extremely trying time in my family. Luckily God answered our prayers and she is still with us and coming up on her sixth year. Sometimes God has a reason for everything even if it is not clear at first glance. Also, always remember that even though times may be difficult never forget who you influence and what you bring to the earth. Even though it is just the first day of class I can tell you are a very caring person and you go beyond what other professors do for their students. I thank you greatly for this. I also know personally you have brightened my day many times and I am positive that you brighten many other of your student’s days. I look forward to continuing and engulfing myself into this course. I also hope that you decide to not become a hermit for the New Year or many students may begin a search party. Again, thank you for being a compassionate person and an inspirational professor. I wish you the best for the holidays and will keep your friend Peter in my prayers.
-Denise
Dr. Martin,
Many of the questions you ask in this post are ones that I find myself thinking about as I go forward in this college experience. Where is my life going? What kind of adjectives do I want to use for myself? Other people use adjectives for me that at times fall on deaf ears. I know more about how I want to be than what I want to do, and this creates problems as I plan short-term and long-term. College seems to be designed for people who know what they want. Unfortunately, there are days where I feel like college is happening to me rather than for me.
My brother’s wife is going through difficulties, as her father’s cancer diagnosis has gotten worse, and he does not have much time. It is hard to hear about someone you care for being diagnosed with a difficult illness. I won’t pretend to know what she is going through, and as I am responding to this post several years after the fact, I can’t imagine what you went through during this time or the things you continue to go through now. Life is hard, and much of it feels like chasing after wind. I often wish I could wear the suffering of my friends and family for them.
I think about isolation, solitude, and the subjective feeling of loneliness all the time. Some of my favorite days on campus are weekends or quiet nights when there are not too many people around. There is a word for that feeling, Kenopsia, and it has a negative connotation but it is one that I actually enjoy. However, I have to keep my tendency to retreat in check quite often. In Genesis, we get several statements of good and even very good, but our first no good is about man being alone. I think about that sometimes.
Thank you for your words, they mean a lot.
Respectfully,
Darian
Dr. Martin,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts about this. The idea of what life will end up being is something that I have thought about quite a bit. As I sit here in my childhood room at the age of 19, about to end my second year of school there is one thing I have realized. Time is fleeting. The older I get the faster everything seems to move. I can remember it like yesterday being in this same room during my middle school years playing video games with my friends into the night without a care in the world. I am in a much different situation now and sometimes it feels like I teleported to it. Life is a scary phenomenon but there are good things as well.
I have much more stress and things to worry about on a daily basis however I know that what I am doing has a purpose and that one day I will be able to show everyone who I am. I will define the adjectives that will describe me in the future through my hard work and determination. All I can control is the work I put in. The rest is left to the preplanned agenda called life.
I am sorry to hear about your friend and his diagnosis. I am glad he was able to have a defining place in your life and that you were able to know him. Many days I wonder how my life would be different if I knew different people. My father passed away when I was only 5 years old. I will never know what he was truly like or what kind of influence he could’ve had on my life. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t think about that. I am thankful that I have had an amazing mom that cared for my brother and me for our whole lives.
Thank you for your words,
Salvatore La Marca
Dr. Martin,
Since I am writing this in 2024, I am quite a bit late to the discovery of your friends illness. Regardless of this fact, I would like to extended my condolences for your friend’s diagnosis. Based of what you’ve wrote in your blog, your friend seemed to be someone who has positively impacted the lives around him, and I am sure that he reciprocated your feelings on your lifelong friendship.
While I was reading your blog, I really enjoyed the way you organized the information. The true definition of commencement means a beginning or a start to something new. However, whenever I hear the word commencement, I think of the end of something old. Nevertheless, I believe that both of these definitions are true. Life is full of new beginnings and saying goodbye to the past. Sometimes it is hard to accept that you are moving on to a new stage of your life, and you want to hang on to the memories and connections that you have made. At the beginning of your blog, you discussed attending a college commencement speech for the winter term. I cannot think of a better example for the definition of commencement. In my personal experience, I never thought that time would have flown by as fast as it has. Currently, I am a junior preparing to start student teaching next spring and then graduation. I have had multiple discussions with my friends about how college is the last time you have stability, and after graduation, it will feel like you are starting a completely new life where you are struggling to figure out what you want to do and how to survive.
This leads your question, “Where will our lives go?” To be completely honest, I don’t know where I will end up. It feels like all of my plans are so set in stone right now, however, I know that life is full of challenges that I will have to overcome. However, as you have said, friends can help you along the way. Two of my lifelong friends have helped shaped me and kept me on the right track for the nineteen years that I have been on this earth. Even when I wonder where and what I will be doing in the future, I do know that there will be people to support me know matter what I do. Unfortunately, I also sometimes believe it is best to just be by myself and face life alone, but I have realized that life can’t be complete without relationships. As humans, I believe we are designed to want human connection both in a physical and spiritual level. I know that my friends have helped me find who I am and will help me achieve the person I want to become regardless of my faults. I believe that it is important to make these human connections even though life is unpredictable. However, even though I know that commencement is inevitable, I am stronger with my friends than I am without.
Overall, I really enjoyed your blog Dr. Martin. I haven’t always thought this extensively about what shaped me into the person I am today or what my future will look like. However, I think that change is important regardless of whether you want it or not. There will be hardships in life where you will feel at your lowest, but it is important to build friendships to help ground you and strengthen you against the challenges of life. Without my friends, I don’t know where I would be right now, but I do know that fifty years in the future I will still have those happy memories and connection of the past even with all the new beginnings that will occur throughout my life. Thanks for your wise words!
Anna Lewis