Senior Send-off 2021: Ethan Gerling

My mom is a big Harry Potter fan and an avid reader. She also never really spends money on herself; if she has to empty her wallet, she prefers to do so for her four kids. So growing up, she only read the first few Harry Potter books, despite being a major fan of the series. The next one in line for her to read was “Goblet of Fire.”

I heard her complain often about how she wanted that book, but she would never buy it for herself. So I decided at the age of five to get it for her. I couldn’t buy it for her, oh no no no— I was five. I wasn’t even old enough to manage a lemonade stand. Instead, I decided to make the book for her.

I sat down with a big sheet of construction paper and a box of crayons and wrote the entire book for my mom to read. Of course, this version of the book was only two pages long. It also may have had a few story elements mixed around, considering my infantile mind had no clue what a “goblet” was and instead wrote a book titled “Goblin of Fire,” but I digress.

The point of this story is that I was a creative kid, and as I grew up I held on to that creativity. In middle school, I began to write and illustrate comics focused on the fantastical misadventures of my friends and me and would pass them around the classroom. In high school, I began to develop my own original characters, with attached narratives, and would storyboard more comics in my notebook.

When the time came to head off to college, I was excited to explore all of the new, creative avenues that would become available to me. But I was also absolutely terrified of the entirely new environment and its pressures.

Looking back at the majority of my college experience, I was right in both my excitement and my fears. I was able to take electronic media and animation courses that taught me so much more about the arts that I loved, and I simultaneously learned to express myself in new ways that I had never even heard of. I also carried a crippling stack of textbooks on my back, the weight of which will forever haunt me. I will be tormented for eternity by the useless knowledge crowding my brain, thanks to the unending gen-ed courses that have nothing to do with where I want to go in life. (Why I had to take a chemistry course to get a Communication degree, I’ll never know).

More importantly, my years at the University of Indianapolis gave me the opportunity to grow, and grow I did. I moved beyond my social anxiety and was able to find a group of friends who brought me comfort as I sprouted into a young seedling on the University of Indianapolis’s campus. I also gained the strength to separate myself from those people, when I realized they were becoming toxic. 

I gained the ability to manage myself in terms of time, finances and emotions. As I began to bud, I figured out how to plan my day, work when necessary, save money and set aside a moment for myself to breathe and cry. Boy oh boy, did I cry, and that was good. I needed to cry, so I did; I got things out of my system, and I moved on. 

At UIndy, I blossomed into quite the handsome young flower, if I do say so myself. Now, I have to uproot myself and walk away from the garden that gave me water, soil, sunlight … all of the nutrients I needed to grow. I must walk out into the big, scary world. As I look at the world, though, I can see that it offers so much more hydration, earth, and sun. I think I can grow a lot bigger in this world.

That creative kid I was still lives inside of me, and he is what drives me forward in almost everything I do. I often want to doodle in my notebook and write nonsensical stories, but now I can do so with a wisdom and experience that five-year-old me would be so proud of. When he made that book for my mom, I don’t think he ever imagined he’d one day win awards for his illustrations or inspire people with his stories. He has now, though. I have. And now I’ll leap into the world, inspired to create something that will make my mom just as proud as she was when she read “Goblin of Fire.”

Recommended for You

Close