Warning: This column is about nothing

Emily Bruzzo
Editor-in-Chief

No one reads this column — except for my Mom; and my Dad when she forwards it to his inbox. Essentially, this is the most uncensored my writing will be for the entirety of my writing career. I’m the editor-in-chief, so I defer to myself. There’s something exhilarating about that, and terrifying as well.

I’ve purposefully steered this column clear of political topics, even though politics are a passion of mine, because our opinions pages are brimming with the words of opining young millennials who write with the sort of vigor and undeserved authority only 20-somethings can muster.

I pay them to do this; after all, it’s a staple of collegiate editorial writing.  But I figured there’s only so much room within three pages for snarky remarks about our moribund political system and commentary on topics we act like we have all the answers to, but really don’t. I haven’t wanted to get in the way of my colleagues.

The name of my column, “Caught in the Middle,” is, in fact, a reference to my proud self-identification as a centrist.  I’m caught in the middle of our polarized political world — get the wit? Interestingly, the title has come to represent something more, though. It’s come to represent how I often feel in life.

Because nobody is reading this column, I am guiltless about using it as a platform to purge my soul. So, I’m gonna do just that.

This week’s column is about nothing in particular. I have no specific idea on which to ruminate; I have no profound observation to assess; I have no opinion to argue.

This is, instead, an anthem for those people in the world who are currently feeling too much and too little all at once and don’t quite know what to do about it. This is for the people who feel like they have to scream, but when they try to even just talk, their own voice sounds foreign to them, making yelling seem like it’s presently out of the question.

This is gibberish to anyone who doesn’t understand. But for those people who do understand, it’s poetry that speaks to their very being.

You’re caught in the middle of yourself. And it sucks. It fucking sucks.

Yep, I dropped the f-bomb. I’m uncensored, remember. And I don’t have an audience. Right now, I’m like the Howard Stern of collegiate column writing.

Anyway, this is a column about nothing. And it’s the greatest irony that nothing is an idea philosophers and theologians alike have mulled over throughout the ages. We’re obsessed with nothingness and what nothing means.

“The universe couldn’t have come from nothing, right?” asks the young Christian apologist as he proselytizes to society’s faithless heathens.

“Nothing really matters, does it?” asks the young nihilist as she reads too much Nietzsche at 4:00 a.m.

Just the other day, in fact, whilst drowning in my own mental anguish and employing my existential angst as a means for facilitating my severe procrastination, I typed the words “does anything matter” in my Google search bar. The results were astounding. I traveled to corners of the Internet that give a whole new meaning to “messed up.”

Suffice it to say, I’ve cleared my browsing history, and I’ve considered visiting a priest for good measure. When you ponder nothing, you can’t help but think about faith. I abandoned mine sometime ago; I shed it off like a snake and his skin, or a recently corporatized hippie and his denim jacket with the Jimi Hendrix button and the embroidery that reads “Drop Acid, Not Bombs.”

I don’t believe in nothing; in fact, I believe in a lot of things. I believe in the sun rising and gravity and my nephew’s laugh and my parents’ love and humanity’s limitations and 7-Eleven slurpees.

I’m not concerned about my soul or hell or betraying a god I’m not so sure about; though, I used to worry — a lot. I’ve come to terms with all of that now. The Universe and I, at least for the moment, get each other. I respect its grandeur and immensity, and it respects my skepticism and tendency to wear mismatched socks.

Sometimes, you just want to break free of it all, though, you know?

Sometimes, you just want to buy an Amtrak ticket to a place you’ve never been and never particularly wanted to visit, pack your bags and leave for an indefinite amount of time, your only companions your favorite book and a cigarette that you won’t smoke for metaphorical purposes like that one guy in that one histrionic movie.

Sometimes, you just want to swim in the nothing of it all, because it hurts too much to go against the current and you’re just a little too downhearted to paddle with any sort of indefatigability.

The point is, if there is someone, other than my parents, who is reading this and gets what I’m saying, well, thanks. I suppose we share a special sort of bond that makes it so we understand a cryptic, lugubrious language that contains too many metaphors and expletives. We share a feeling that can’t be described in one word and is scary because of that fact.

I guess I’m a bit overwhelmed by nothing right now. And that’s okay. At least that’s what I tell myself when the nothing feels too heavy.

Good luck with nothing, readers.