The Great Perhaps

 

For me, Friday, March 13th symbolizes the beginning of quarantine. Since that day, I have walked, hiked, and ran more than 300 miles. It does not feel like an accomplishment as much as it feels like a method of survival. I have never been so restless, so hungry for space and fresh air.

I anticipated graduating as the beginning of a great adventure. For me, that great adventure involved a sense of wonder and awe at the wandering to come. I had so many plans, so many dreams about what the adventure would look like and who would be accompanying me. Perhaps naively, I marveled at a future without limitations. 

I certainly could not have predicted the way the pandemic would shape my dreams. To be honest, it is hard to dream about anything. I'm too much of a realist to look beyond our current limitations and too tired to stake my hope on any kind of dramatic change.

That being said, these days, these months, these many miles have taught me to embrace what I have. I live in the present in a way I never have before. I am no longer thinking about the destination because I quite literally do not have one. I can only focus on each step along the way. In doing so, I have found a strange sense of adventure in the mundane every day moments. 

I've always been fascinated by stories of people who overcome hardship only to be happier and lighter, but I have never understood them. Don't they get tired of making the best of bad things? Well, I've found the answer is both yes and no. In a very new and tangible way, I'm beginning to glimpse the internal process of resilience - part cynicism and part gratitude, part midnight dance break and part mountain sunset.  

Famously quoted in John Green's young adult novel Looking for Alaska, François Rabelais' last words were "I go to seek a Great Perhaps."  (I read all of John Green's books in middle and high school, and I just watched the adaption of the novel to a TV miniseries on Hulu - highly recommend with the caveat that it is very sad.) These words encapsulate a longing for adventure that never left Rabelais, even on his death bed. 

Personally, I love the word perhaps. It conveys possibility and expectation in such a gentle, and even timid, way. One of my favorite things to do in college essays was to use the word perhaps and then follow it with a radical statement that was borderline unfounded. I never got caught, or at least, my professors let me get away with it.

The future is a great perhaps, a force unknown, a hope not yet awakened. I long for adventure, and yet, I have also found it. There are so many miles to run.