As I’m getting older, especially in the world of FPS, I find myself looking for signs/connections in my surroundings more and more; looking for ways to understand my feelings of growing up and leaving the town I’ve always called home. Many times, it’s simple things such as movies like High School Musical or Perks of Being a Wallflower, or songs that went platinum in my car freshman year randomly coming up on my recommended tracks to never be played again—like an odd farewell. But sometimes it’s something that hits you out of the blue like a lone black bear wandering your neighborhood streets.
For the small portion of Fargo who was not made aware of this wild animal—or what I call a ‘sign from above’–-wandering the roads of Maple and Meadowlark, an estimated two year old black bear was in the Longfellow neighborhood. The short six second clip of the bear crossing the street gained over 2,500 likes on the InForum’s Instagram page, a stark contrast to the average 50 likes other posts get. It became a topic of conversation in nearly all of my classes. Were so many of my peers enthralled by this bear because it’s not often you can say you saw a bear in your front yard, or because they saw themselves in this divine wanderlust creature?
Senior year is a time of confronting many feelings and coming to a close with the only life you’ve known: confronting an unknown. You know you’ll soon move on to a whole new environment whether it’s across the street from Fargo North, or across the country, you’re bound to be lost. Not recognizing the foreign faces that confront you, or the obsessive feeling that everyone knows you’re new–it’s daunting.
Sometimes when faced with fear—or when anticipating it—humans look for connection. For many it’s reading a Reddit post of someone else who has also fled the coop or talking to their recently graduated friend who was too at one point scared of making new friends. Sometimes it’s the bear.
The bear was surrounded by roads it didn’t know, surrounded by faces its never seen, and didn't know if and how to get home. The lost cadence it had on videos gave my peers and I a feeling of settlement that even a creature as big and burly as a black bear could too feel this feeling of loneliness.
The loneliness felt in the world outside Fargo North won’t last forever though. Sure you will no longer have the safety net of the people you’ve grown to know for 13 years, but you will find your place. Similar to the bear no matter how ‘out of place’ you might be you will be on your own to find your own path to wherever home may be; no one is forcibly removing you.
It’s so important to thrive in the feeling of solitude and take in this big change as a fresh start. You have more freedom to explore areas you may have not felt comfortable in highschool, and there isn’t this preset outside pressure to exceed all the time. Adapting to a new place may be something as simple as finding a new comfort restaurant or taking a stroll in a park on a nice day. There’s an importance in immersing ourselves into the culture around us and becoming ‘one with the community’; it can provide us with a sense of belonging and is crucial to our survival outside of the forest And, within these foreign habitats, hopefully we will all be welcomed with empathy and compassion like the black bear was.
At around 18 months Black Bears are pushed out by their Momma Bear and are forced to live on their own. At 18 years old we are told to do the same. We might end up in a similar spot as the Black Bear–a place we are unfamiliar with…and maybe shouldn’t be. However just remember if an 18 month old black bear can face the foreign world with adversity and a smile on its face, so should you.
