A Letter to a Long-Lost Friend

Dear Anne,

Fear.

This has been the pervading emotion since the start of school last Tuesday. It has gripped, not only me, but the entire class also with the ferocity of a boa constrictor. A significant amount of time has passed since I had been a freshman and about a year or two since I wrestled with calming my frazzled nerves and keeping my spirits buoyant.

It is an interesting experience, nonetheless. An almost opposite emotion somewhat, though unsuccessfully, offsets the near-paralysis from fear.

Awe.

It has been far longer since I last found my jaw dropping invountarily, stricken almost lifeless with utter amazement. Fear is experienced by my now overworked heart on an almost, if not, continual basis but awe is something else. It's almost like a left straight which seems to come from nowhere and hits you squarely between the eyes. All of a sudden you're down on the ground, flat on your back but delirious from the knock-out which sends floating yellow stars doing the Cha-cha just inches from your eyelids.

Walking along and around these halls gives me that feeling. At some point in time, great men planted their feet on the very floor I was standing on. Even now, men of great brilliance walk past me. The feeling of unworthiness engulfs me all of a sudden - a sense of disgrace that I had dared trespass on the halls of the great. For someone like me who entertains no illusions of grandeur and is more than content with the mere thought of making it through intact after a week of backbreaking, nervewracking, heartstopping work, the feeling is overwhelming and disarming yet encouraging and hopeful at one end.

An upper classman said to us that the walls seem to take on a life of their own, standing as mute, cold witnesses to years of study which permeate both brutality and enlightenment. Ghostly voices reverberate in a swirl, exchanging tales of yonder and greatness amidst footsteps and the sound of pages being turned.

If I were to be granted the mercy of walking these halls everyday for the next 525,600 minutes and hopefully another 1,576,800 more, I only wish that the walls would speak kindly of me.

Blogger's note: As a girl of 10, I used to secretly pretend I had a correspondence with a friend named Anne and I wrote letters to her on an almost monthly basis until I was 19.

Anne is actually Anne Frank.