The halfway point of the semester is fast approaching. Midterms are near.
For many, tension and anxiety will fill the coming weeks. There are exams to prepare for. Essays to write. Projects to complete. But as the mounting pressure to succeed intensifies during this time of year, it is important to take a step back and look around — to savor the little moments in time spent with the people around you.
One Thursday in late September, I was sitting on the back porch of my first-floor apartment with three close friends. The night was humid and indistinct. Buena Vista Social Club was playing softly on Pandora.
Normally, our time together is easygoing and lighthearted. We like to laugh and make fun of each other, often excessively. But our conversation that night embraced a different tone.
A few days prior, Jose Fernandez — the star pitcher for the Miami Marlins — died suddenly in a boating accident. This year has been littered with celebrity deaths: David Bowie, Prince and Alan Rickman, to name a few.
I also experienced death firsthand when my father passed away 11 days before school started.
Yet Fernandez’s death evoked something different. It hit us all hard in a weird, unexpected way. When older people die, it is sad, but not necessarily tragic. This was an instance of life’s flame extinguished too soon. It felt like a punch to the gut.
He was just 24 years old, only three years older than us. He was expecting a child with his girlfriend. He had his whole life ahead of him.
So we sat together on the porch that night with his death fresh in our minds. Our conversation left no stone unturned. We discussed the fragility of life and how quickly time passes, impending graduation and the possibility of graduate school, marriage and the search for jobs.
We made plans for this semester to go camping and fishing, to spend more time outdoors and more time with each other.
Yet none of those plans are guaranteed. Jose Fernandez went out on his boat that fateful night expecting to return home. One minute, he was doing something he loved. The next, it was all over.
Before we knew it, we had talked well past midnight and into the early morning hours. It was almost 3 a.m. Some people might not appreciate the worth of a simple conversation, but it’s moments like these with the people we care about most that need to be savored: outwardly insignificant moments when time seems to stand still, the world stops spinning and nothing matters but the people around us.
On the surface, it was a mundane moment. There was nothing exceptional about that night, save for the people surrounding me on that porch. It’s little snapshots in time like these with the most important people that we carry with us forever.
Two of my friends are seniors like me. One is a junior. We only have a short time left before our run at UF comes to an end and we’re forced go our separate ways. If these next months at all resemble the last three years, it’s going to go by too fast.
Too often, we get trapped in the whirlwind grind of school and work. We become so focused on what comes next in life that we lose sight of what’s happening now. Slow down. Be grateful. Be unusual.
Learn to love the firm promise of today as much as the untapped potential of tomorrow.
Brian Lee is a UF English senior. His column appears on Thursdays.
