Well, as I was driving away from work today, it hit me: I really am graduating. I seized up, teared up, and all but started sobbing. Yes, I’m sensitive enough to admit it.

Rather than turning left onto Sparkman Drive, I drove straight across on Lakeside to make it onto the loop road that encircles most of UAH. I drove around in second gear, about 20 miles an hour, trying not to be so focused on snuffling and reminiscing that I hit any pedestrians.

I thought of many things as I drove around campus … a walk PJ and I took not long after he’d become SGA President … driving around campus with James Kodrowski in our first month in office in SGA, deciding where things should go … the meeting with the Campus Priorities and Resources Committee where I cleared my throat and said, “Folks, the only place that makes sense to put a dorm is” right where they’ve put NCRH … my first move-in day at CCRH … the day I moved out of CCRH for the last time … the various campus tours I’ve ever taken and given at UAH … the worst tour I ever gave, which turned out to be for someone who’s now a friend … many, many long nights in the SGA Office.
I have given UAH my heart and my soul over the last five years. I have made many good and bad choices here. I’d like to say that I cherish the good ones and regret the bad ones, but, you know, it’s like the old saw goes: “Good judgement comes from experience; unfortunately, experience comes from bad judgement.” I’ve done brilliant things and stupid things here. I’m proud of them all.

I never will forget the day when I felt UAH had “arrived”. It was the fall of my fourth year here, not ten days after my mother’s stroke. I was working center-front stage security as Better Than Ezra played a great rock concert five feet behind me. I looked out, surveyed the crowd, and said, “The hard work that everyone has done–and that I’ve continued, I guess–has finally started to come to pass.”

PJ and I went to lunch today at Beauregard’s on Jordan. He and I reminisced about choosing UAH as a school. PJ thought about it for a second and said, “Shoot, you know what? The first time I came to UAH as a prospect was ten years ago this summer.” It was six years ago for me. I fell in love with the campus [even as much as it looks like a freaking office park] about five minutes after we drove onto it [and promptly got lost on the loop, as anyone who's ever driven by Morton Hall has done]. As much as UAH has frustrated me–including the time that they refused to fight a court battle and, in effect, wouldn’t challenge a statement made in court that said I lied–I have retained that love to this day.

The damn thing is, I still don’t know the words to the fight song…