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"Miles to go before I sleep"~Words Robert Frost once wrote, many years ago...And verily, if most unduly, I have learned the meaning of that phrase throughout the past 8 years of my college career. And soon, all too soon, it will be coming to a close. I was 18 when I started. 18, and legally an adult, but in reality a child. Sure, I had all the right markings and indicators of socio-economic and academic success: middle class parents, private Catholic schooling, 3 older siblings who had already been there and done that...The list goes on and on and on...But at the age of 18, I did not consider these things. Consider the privilege, the opportunity, the reasons why I was going to college. I was just a child, doing as I was told, chasing after my older sister who graduated college in 2 years and law school in 2 1/2 years.

And at the age of 18, in that pursuit of her, I went to the same school as she did: Ohio University. Not OSU, but Ohio University, in Athens, home of the Bobcats and, depending on the year, 1st or 2nd biggest party school in the country. Also one of the top writing schools in the country and one that I had the express privilege of failing out of. Did I party? No. Did I study? No. Did I have any idea what I was doing there? Not at all...After the first semester and the novelty of being independent and college wore off, everyday felt strange, perhaps wrong...Constantly uncertain, constantly second guessing, feeling like I was half here and half elsewhere; it was like I was playing chess with myself, and both sides were loosing. In retrospect, it's amazing that I lasted 2 1/2 years at Ohio University.

Fast forward through an episode of depression, arguments with my father, and loosing touch with my family (Stewarts never fail.) and I am 21, living with my parents only by the grace of my mother, going to Owens and finding out that my credits from Ohio University could not transfer (OU, at the time, was on quarters, and credits earned from a state accredited university using quarters could not transfer easily to another university using semesters), and I would have to start over. This time, all I could feel was mounting frustration and hopelessness. With what little I did pass at OU, I could not use it at Owens, and suddenly the road become much steeper. So steep, in fact, I had to get a night job at Fed-Ex to pay for Owens; my father was not going to pay for another failure, and although my mother was willing to use her savings, it was only enough for half-way. I had to pay the other half, and pay it, I did.

Owens took me 3 years to graduate from, at the age of 24, and only with average grades. Working at Fed-Ex during the night and going to school led to some classes being dropped and it did not make for a great combination. It still does not. Yet I do it because my mom's saving account is dry, she has to retire sometime, and some lessons have to be learned the harsh way. Some lessons, Mr. Frost, require you to take both roads. And that takes time. But the real reason for the lost time at Owens was the lie of Fed-Ex. The lie I fell into: By no means was I unable to finish those dropped classes, I just chose not too. I chose to believe that being really awesome at moving packages and working really hard for $14 an hour would get me somewhere. After 4 years working there, it did: I was 25 and had received a 'promotion' that entailed 10x the responsibility and $2/hour less pay, with the potential to get a 3% raise every year if I did the work of two people, instead of one. When I did the math and realized how long it would take me to get to my last hourly wages, the same wages that people under me with less responsibility...Never, have I ever, had such a moment of clarity. I enrolled at BGSU as quick as possible.



And now, at the age of 26, I graduate in 15 days. Ostensibly, with a ~3.6 g.p.a. So many feelings, so many thoughts, so many words, so little time to express them in this piece. It's surreal: 8 years of near-non-stop college (I only got my associates so I would get promoted at Fed-Ex. I took a year off because I thought I was done.) and all I will have to show for it is a Bachelors in English: Pre-Law. Not an Engineering degree, not a Physics degree, nor a Computer degree--An English degree and a suggestion of what next. But it is more than a suggestion: it's a demand, a calling, a perilous path so few can tread and even fewer can succeed. But tread I must. Succeed, I will. Robert Frost once wrote, " Miles to go before I sleep", and having learned the real meaning of that, I would like to comment:



Each year that passes rings you inwardly with memory and might. Wield your heart, and the world will tremble.



Remember to vote for me in 2040,

for I have promises to keep

and miles to go before I sleep.