my hopeful imagination

Where Am I?

I am at a place and time where I am building up my identity from near scratch.  Everyday I absorb external stimuli, and the thoughts that reverberate in my mind in response build and shape my identity.  Perhaps I will find another couple blocks and some new plaster during my journey in India.

I am at a place where I am comfortable and proud of who I am.  I am constantly meeting new people and find myself submerged in all kinds of environments.  As I learn, acculturate, and adapt to these new situations, I welcome new qualities as part of my identity and become more self-aware of who I am.  I am at an age where I am flexible and highly malleable – provided with the cushion of family and community to fall back on and possessing relatively few responsibilities of my own – and I can thus more fully explore the many opportunities I am given and look beyond the confines that we tend to place ourselves in.

I am aware and grateful of the opportunities that I have.  I am curious and constantly angered just by how imperfect and unequal the world is.

 

What am I leaving behind?

 

            I am leaving behind many things.  I am always leaving things behind.  I always feel as if I am leaving behind less material, physical things than I am personal relationships.  That is because physical things often find replacement, but each and every human relationship that I have is unique and different from the other.

A couple days ago, I left behind my new friends from camp down at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University.  As an international boarding student at Andover, I am accustomed to leaving friends behind – sometimes for indefinite lengths of time.  But I also know that even if I cannot see those friends, our relationships will continue to survive in some form, whether that’s through Snapchat and Facebook or just in my mind and heart.  True friendship lasts – as proven both in my experience and the stretch of my hopeful imagination.

--Rhaime