Turns Out....Ignorance Really Is Bliss

Fall semester is in full swing. I am once again walking the tight rope between homework and having a life. I used to hate that I was so busy, now I don't mind it. If I have a free moment I try to fill it. I have been getting a maximum 6 hours of sleep a night so by the time I reach the end of the day, I'm too tired to lie awake thinking about my life.

I was sitting in my Intro to Literature class the other day, we were discussing famous poems & quotes. My professor asked a girl what she thought of Robert Frost's Nothing Gold Can Stay. (I've included it below for reference) I had a sort of imaginary conversation with this girl and it went something like this:

Girl: It made me sad
Me: (thinking to myself) Um, yeah. That's kind of the point
Girl: Unnecessarily sad. This is why I hate poetry.
Me: Wait, what? You're an English major and you hate poetry?
Girl: I don't understand why this is so sad.
Me: Well, it's about how fragile mortality is. You don't get it do you?
Girl: I guess I can find beauty in it if I really try, but it's just so....depressing! (she said it like it was a filthy, rabid dog. Full of contempt.)
Me: Wow, you really don't get it! It's an outward manifestation of the inner turmoil that is grief. He is using his words as a gift for those like me. Lost in the trenches of despair, wondering if we are the only person to feel this way. He is giving the gift of companionship by showing that other people have felt the same way I do.
Girl: I guess that's what I got out of it, that it's a really sad poem.
Me: Psssh, that's poignant. You must be a genius or something!

At this point I was so annoyed at her ignorance that I was ready to leave class. I looked and saw that I still had 45 minutes left. Crap! I sat the rest of the class half sulking because of her ignorance, half smirking because of her amazing lack of eloquence.

Since then I keep thinking about it. I love that poem, it speaks to me. Probably because of what I've been through. For her, it really is just a sad poem with no meaning. She dismissed it so easily because she didn't understand it. Now I envy her. She has no idea what this feels like. It would be so nice if I was ignorant like her. Not too long ago I was.

I remember discussing this same poem last fall. I didn't understand it then the way I do now. It was a lovely poem, but it meant nothing to me. I dismissed it just as she did. I am jealous of this girl. I want to live in a happy, ignorant world. I want to go back to when I didn't understand this pain.

I suppose there's no point in obsessing with that old life. I'm only torturing myself. I need to pick myself up again, dust myself off, and keep moving. I can do this.

Nothing Gold Can Stay
Robert Frost

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.