MAHDI: The Last One

Warren Towers on a Sunday morning is reminiscent of the eerie quiet before a storm. All is silent; the dining hall is deserted. Mailboxes stand unopened, miniature windows into the brightly lit hall. I walk up to the security desk to reclaim my ID card. The guard rifles through some papers before happening upon my card and stares at it, seemingly perplexed by what he saw.

“Are you the girl from The Daily Free Press?”

“Yes! Yes I am.”

When we collectively reflect on the year 2011, it becomes almost impossible to encapsulate each day, each hour and each event into one solitary word or feeling. I walked into The DFP office the Jan. 23, 2011 for the Spring Open House and I was petrified. As I signed my name indicating my interest in the Opinion section, I had no idea that this column, this space of mine I have cherished for a year, would become an extension of myself that I would grow to love and develop for weeks to come. I entered that scattered office with words flapping off the walls on crooked pieces of paper naïve, apprehensive, and lost. I did not come here with a distinct voice. I did not come here with an outlined purpose, nor did I tiptoe into that room with a fully defined conviction. I came here with merely optimism, ill experience and a need for direction. What better way to find what you’re looking for than to lay the contents of your mind out to hundreds of strangers every week for two semesters? There was no doubt it was a dive into the unknown that had me questioning my sanity above all else.

One year later, as this chapter reaches its inevitable conclusion simultaneously with the conclusion of the year, I would like to think I leave appreciative and humbled by the world we live in. I began my expedition in fear; where would I find people who would possibly want to read my opinion in print as they sipped their coffee, settled in for bed or browsed the Internet as they procrastinated writing an ominous research paper?

I observed as those 800 words I wrote every week evolved into a record of how I felt about the year 2011. I wrote about acts of hatred and war. I wrote about revolt and protest. I wrote about London burning, Japan drowning and America reeling in the wake of natural disaster. I wrote about spiritual awakenings and how some mused that we were in the midst of the end of the world. I observed hatred and resentment as frustrated crowds expressed discontent. I fled my dorm and pounded pavements in search of my very first breaking story when the death of Osama bin Laden tipped Boston into a spontaneous frenzy. I wrote unashamedly about love and British royalty. I rejoiced as puppies were freed from laboratory captivity and when a woman gained her sense of hearing after living in silence for more than two decades. I marvelled at wonders of space exploration, I lamented the disjointed, disenchanted society we have become. I ridiculed Charlie Sheen, Herman Cain and the vast array of other colourful characters that found their way into our lives through some medium or another. I wrote about buying happiness through life gurus and displays of broken hearts.

The journey through 2011 included breast milk ice cream, transparent dresses, a baby coming to the world with the name Facebook, Cleopatra’s asp, the fountain of youth, our world population hitting seven billion people, physical and mental endurance in a marathon, the unfortunate death of Apple visionary, Steve Jobs and anything in between in this lunacy we call life. My only regret is ever lamenting that I had nothing to write about when trying to piece together a story. Even as I read about horrific murder or elated jubilation, I don’t think that we as a generation, society or population fully understand that in every one of these stories that blink across your televisions or your computer screens, there was evidence of a depth and breadth of life we could never possibly fathom.

But more importantly, you, whoever you may be, read them. I can only hope that my words strung together elicited something in all of you. I can only hope that anyone who ever glanced at a sentence, a headline or a whole article of mine, came away intellectually and emotionally provoked. Whether I made you laugh in incredulity or relief, made you cry in anguish or in awe, I can only hope my time as a columnist for The DFP reminded you just how much life there is out there. I can only hope brief snapshots of moments or memories around the world caused you to think, caused you to dream, caused you to pause for a split second longer before shrugging your shoulders and returning to mindless creeping on Facebook.

When confronted with an ending, you can’t help but reflect on where you started. As I type these emotionally weighted words by a large window overlooking a Boston University campus dripping in rainfall, I suppose it is alarmingly easy to sink into the angst-ridden cliché of sadness and loss in the face of finality. My inconsequential ramblings over the past year may not carry the power or influence to cure a fatal disease, solve the crisis of climate change or dig large parts of our planet out of a deepening financial crisis. What I hope they have served to do, however, is to instil a renewed faith in the power of a voice. In my final words, I would like to extend my wholehearted thanks to my friends, my family and all the support and love that I have been showered with from this column’s conception.

I finished editing my penultimate column of the past spring semester on April 26, 2011. As I unplugged my laptop and prepared to leave the office, my editor turned to me and said, “I hope something big happens for you. It is your last one!” It most certainly did.

Sofiya Mahdi is a sophomore in the College of Arts & Sciences and a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press. She can be reached at sofiya21@bu.edu.