All in all, he was grateful for the second chances he was afforded in life. He understood them not as an opportunity to correct a wrong doing, but rather as a blessing to continue producing the imagined worlds he lived in.

She was a writer and he an illustrator. In both their minds, their relationship was always in doubt. As artists, they hungered for vision and creation. When an idea developed they would spend days scribbling, sketching, and shuffling post-it-notes, scrap paper, and cut outs. They would post their ideas on a large wall, an entire room acting as their canvas, their studio, their blank sheet of paper. It was in these moments, that they knew their partnership was something special.

She believed their partnership could not survive a single idle moment. He believed that there was a bond between them that would be an infinite well of inspiration. As partners, they struggled to co-exist in the same space, could not overcome petty bickering, and finally distanced one another. At times they would spend weeks away from each other, heavily obsessing over their own work, breaking any sense of a shared commitment. It was in these moments, that they knew their partnership would cripple each other.

And so, during their first chance, it did.

All in all, he was grateful for the second chances he was afforded in life. He was waiting for his second chance. But characteristic of their relationship, he was not waiting for her, he was waiting for inspiration.

2nd chances

When I met professor Burkes I was taken aback by his frank questions to the class, “When you leave Cal, how will you apply what you have learned?”

Looking back, this should not have surprised me. He was a professor of Peace and Conflict studies. His job was resolving dissonance between parties. But at the time I was unaware that a conflict could even exist between my studies and what lay ahead.

I realize now, a few years out, that I had effectively learned to succeed at school rather than learned how to apply school towards success. A delicate dance of the right amount of reading, engagement, and strategizing would guarantee me the grades that I felt were necessary for advancement. Sure my grades were a big influence in why I got my job, but my grades did not guarantee my success.

If I had to do it all over again, I would have taken Professor Burkes's questions to heart and written a real answer instead of the answer that I thought would give me a good grade.

.Tracey.