How One Rose Saved My Life

"I remember when there wasn't a breeze. There was no rose. There was no peace."

Seven years ago, in late May of 2018, I was accompanied by applause across a bright auditorium stage to receive my high school diploma. For many people, each step across the stage is bittersweet -- a step away from friends and the romantic, dramatic teenage high school experience toward the daunting but promising realities of adulthood.

For me, the walk was bitter.

The tedium of school, the weight of family and colleagues' untamed expectations, the anxiety of looming, failing romantic relationships, the lack of authenticity and awareness of teens and the teachers that encouraged and perpetuated harmful behaviors, the physical and mental toll of being a track and field captain, a crippling God complex, a lack of purpose -- it is too easy to develop a sense of bitterness under such circumstances. Bitterness becomes cynicism.

Cynicism becomes nihilism. Nihilism perpetuates helplessness. Helplessness forms a deep depression.

A dark void.

"Loan me a hand through the misery, God. Come give me a lease"

Just a year prior, I was invited to a 2.5 week summer camp at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in the boonies of Terre Haute, IN (I'm from Naptown, so I can say that). Over the course of the camp, I coded a video game from scratch with two teammates, scored 15 points in a loss to be eliminated from a 3v3 basketball tournament (games were to 21), laughed and cried tears of joy for hours with a band of guys aiming for the stars.

It was at that camp that the void began to separate -- a peephole of light becoming visible. A blurry, rounded silhouette began to come into view. Foolishly, I began to think:

"What if it doesn't have to be this dark? What if it gets better than this?"

A few months later, I applied to the school, confident that I was wanted there but equally confident that a school with a $70k a year cost of admission was out of my reach without a scholarship -- a full ride. My dad was a policeman (sheriff at the time) working three jobs to put two of my older siblings through school with minimal debt; this is after already successfully putting my oldest sister through, sleeping three hours a night on a good day, and often forgoing rest altogether.

My only way into the "land of hope" I so dearly yearned was a full ride scholarship -- for fate to shine its light into the void. For God to give me a lease.

God gave me the lease.

"This is the reason I came to the forest"

Four years later, in late May of 2022, I was accompanied by applause across a bright auditorium stage to receive my college diploma. This time, the steps felt different. This time, I had met genuine souls, lovably flawed people, experienced love and loss, faced near legal trouble (a story for another day), spent countless sleepless nights in classrooms and common areas hooking up virtual wires and debugging confusingly written programs, cried with friends, run through abdominal tears, biked miles to physical therapy for said injuries.

Every foot lifted across that stage pressed the play button on a different memory in my head; the slamming of my foot ejected the tape, startling me as I realized I was one step closer to leaving this place.

On my final step, I opened my eyes to a sight I once thought was impossible -- mythical.

What was once a "peephole" in the void had become a sea of light. The cold hard gravel had become a vast grassland. And in the center of that grassland was a young man with an afro and the graduation cap that had to be banded onto his head.

The young man was laying in a field of red and white roses, diploma in hand, enjoying the sun's rays before continuing his long journey into the grasslands.

Suddenly, he hears a rustle in the bushes and jumps up; his head darts 180 degrees to find an old man. An old man with a spider web's colored, disorganized tumbleweed on his head that only the most generous of people would call an afro. As a light breeze sweeps over the two gentlemen, the old man, wearing a polished platinum ring glistening on his left ring finger, leans in and asks the younger man a question.

"Do you smell love in the breeze and the roses?"

Thanks for reading,
Stephen (Suti~Tooti)

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"Stuck In The Roses" by Suti~Tooti is out now.
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