Column: Senior Moments, "Imagine"

Someone once told me life has three components: what we know, what we know we don’t know and everything else. Hearing this, I had two thoughts: First, that this theory is completely random. Second: It is pure genius. Despite my best efforts, I can’t forget it.

High school is coming to an abrupt end, and I’m finding it difficult to let go of this homey setting. I’ll miss the single-person desks that barely have enough space for one folder. I’ll miss the teachers and their witty comments. Most of all, I’ll miss the books I’ve read and the lectures I’ve attended. In contrast, I’ve come to understand everything is math, everything is English and everything is science. History is the story of how it all came to be and why it matters. Looking in common places for these subjects I learned from a textbook brings me comfort.

If you think about it, numbers, letters and matter are all around us. Everything is countable. Every thought each person has is the organized scramble of letters in their own mind. Every time we breathe, we bear witness to the wonders of biology, chemistry and physics. We learned this. We know this.

There was a time this wasn’t the case. The moment right when we are invited into a new concept, there is an uncharted awareness that we are in the unknown, otherwise known as a struggle. When we start a new job, go to a new school or even walk into a different grocery store, we know we don’t know what we are going to experience. Regardless of our resistance to grasp new concepts, we persevere. This hasn’t stopped us. This won’t stop us.

If you are anything like me, going through the learning process has never felt natural. I went to school only because it was the right thing to do. This is the journey, the experience, the goal. But there is another side of life. The side we don’t know or learn. The “everything else.” These are the questions we can’t name — the mysteries, perhaps. We’ll never make enough money to buy them, not because they are free, but because they are already in our possession.

Being only 18 years old, I’m just a person, and this is just an idea. It is not in my nature to think abstractly. Honestly, I am often tempted to fear the ideas larger than my own mind. But isn’t it beautiful? To learn and to know perfect truths. To struggle and strengthen our minds. To question existence again and again. Doing this, we can rest in wonder and awe.

Let’s take back our imagination and dream the ideas only we can dream. Let’s find joy, freedom and peace, even if it doesn’t make sense. Let’s forget our ignorance and decide to belong to a perfect love. A love that asks questions and provides us with answers. Even for one day, what if we move past the things we know and the things we know we don’t know, and we just sit in the idea that some things aren’t meant to be studied, they are meant to be lived. There is an “everything else.” If it’s love, if it’s life, if it’s you, will you believe in it?

Erin Urhahn is a senior at Oak Ridge High School. She's just a girl trying to find her niche in the world.