If, way back long ago, I’d have given up I would miss out on these days of reflection.\u00a0 I would not have been able to know, deep in the knowing, I got through it; in tact and whole- maybe even more so than I ever imagined.\u00a0 Not that there weren’t any scars mind you.<\/p>\n
Way back when, maybe even the first week of college, certainly the first semester when I was loving autumn but not my life in autumn.\u00a0 When I was feeling lost in a sea of perfect girls, from perfect worlds, who had been on the perfect track to perfection.\u00a0 I felt like the lost sock in a dryer of freshly laundered madras.\u00a0 Anyway, somehow I landed in the threshold of an office outfitted with a beautiful big desk, making the woman sitting behind it appear even more petite than she was-an office cluttered with the droppings of somehow who very clearly loved adventure, learning and life.\u00a0 I was standing in the midst of someone who would change my life forever and all I\u00a0 could do was cry.<\/p>\n
I am looking for Dr. Shearburn.\u00a0 Dr. Dudley Shearburn.\u00a0 ( a stodgy, pipe smoking old man, professorial looking in the same suit he wears everyday- a brown bag lunch even? with a thermos of black coffee-grading papers? )<\/p>\n
Yes?\u00a0 Dear?\u00a0 The sound of southern, real southern,female, warm blanket southern from behind a stack of books.\u00a0 Lots and lots of books.\u00a0 There were books everywhere.\u00a0 And art.\u00a0 Lots of art of all kinds.<\/p>\n
I was told, ( not now, you can’t cry now) to see Dr. Shearburn.\u00a0 My advisor.\u00a0 I am looking for Dr. Shearburn. ( I am quite certain if I am not pointed in the direction of where I am supposed to go, this poor women, with the warm blanket southern voice, is going to see me breakdown and sob.)<\/p>\n
She stood up and walked from behind the desk-outfitted in colors and big jewelry.\u00a0 Artsy jewelry.\u00a0 She was alive.\u00a0 Lively.\u00a0 A little impish.\u00a0 She sized me up in a second.<\/p>\n
Uh huh.\u00a0 What have we here?<\/p>\n
Silence.<\/p>\n
Sugah, I am Dr. Shearburn.\u00a0 You are supposed<\/em> to see me.\u00a0 Warm blanket southern with as warm of a smile.<\/p>\n And that was that.<\/p>\n Let’s walk.<\/p>\n And for the next two hours we did.\u00a0 Up and around a beautiful campus decked out in a stellar Piedmont North Carolina Fall.\u00a0 Through the historic graveyards, past the bakery and up and down hills.\u00a0 It was a walk ,to coin a phrase, to remember.\u00a0 And I always have.<\/p>\n I cried.\u00a0 Expressed my fear of being in a place where it appeared everyone else had it all figured out-and I was no where near the questions, never mind the answers. I hated my classes, hated feeling trapped and hated the fact we had to sing, yes, sing about virgin trees.\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 Virgin trees.\u00a0 Which were about the only things on campus NOT screwing around. Not that it bothered me.\u00a0 Just seemed a little hypocritical, that’s all.<\/p>\n It seemed so easy for everyone else.\u00a0 Prepared from years in a prep school or boarding school.\u00a0 My learning curve was way off,well the curve.<\/p>\n Dr. Shearburn listened and walked.\u00a0 Walked and listened. She would giggle.\u00a0 She would nod from time to time, offer an insight here and there.\u00a0 She held my hand, grabbed my shoulder, and called me sugah.\u00a0 A lot.<\/p>\n It’s not fair I said.\u00a0 It’s just\u00a0 not fair.<\/p>\n She stopped walking-turned and looked at me, straight on with a smile and said:<\/p>\n Life is not<\/em> fair.\u00a0 Whoever told you life is fair?\u00a0 Remove that word from your vocabulary.\u00a0 Right here and now.\u00a0 You get to choose. You get to reinvent.\u00a0 You get to chart the course.\u00a0 You get to get a life….and make it whatever you want.\u00a0 But, life is not fair and it never will be.\u00a0 So get over it and move on.<\/p>\n And that was that.<\/p>\n The next week, I changed some classes around, got a job off campus, and began the art of creating my life. It is advice that has never failed me.\u00a0 Not once.\u00a0 These are the words I share( quite often) with my daughter when she lets it be known that, indeed, life is not fair.<\/p>\n No, it is not. I tell her.\u00a0 It never will be. But you get to create your own life-your own words for your own world.\u00a0 You get to choose.<\/p>\n Dr. Shearburn stayed with me the entire four years of college life-and years later, she is with me as I reach milestones.\u00a0 In life and in art.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n