Forget Noah from The Notebook — your new fave letter-writing dreamboat is former President Barack Obama. While he was in college in the early 1980s, Obama penned a series of letters to his girlfriend at the time, and now, nine of his incredibly eloquent notes are on display on the Emory University campus in Atlanta for research purposes...so don't be alarmed when presidential researchers suddenly seem a whole lot more poetic.
According to Emory, the nine letters span 30 pages and are addressed to Alexandra McNear, who Obama met while they both attended Occidental College in Los Angeles. He wrote the letters between 1982 and 1984, while he was attending Columbia University (where he transferred from Occidental as a junior), visiting Indonesia, and working at the Business International Corporation in New York City. Emory has reportedly had the letters since 2014, but is just now putting them on public display in its Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library, where they can be viewed by appointment.
Rosemary Magee, the library's director, said that the letters "reveal the search of a young man for meaning and identity." She added, "While intimate in a philosophical way, they reflect primarily a college student coming to terms with himself and others...They will serve as sources of both inspiration and reassurance to people of all ages and backgrounds."
Excerpts from the letters published by Emory and the Associated Press reveal that the pages are more than just love letters — they're also full of a young Barack Obama's thoughtful musings on education, being biracial, and his goals for the future. "School. What intelligent observations can I glean from the first two weeks? I pass through the labyrinths, corridors, see familiar faces, select and discard classes and activities, fluctuate between unquenchable curiosity and heavy, inert boredom," he wrote in one letter, perfectly summing up the rollercoaster ride of being a student.
"Caught without a class, a structure, or a tradition to support me, in a sense the choice to take a different path is made for me," a 21-year-old Obama wrote from Columbia in September 1982 while "drinking V8 juice and listening to a badly scratched opera being broadcast." He continued, "The only way to assuage my feelings of isolation are to absorb all the traditions, classes, make them mine, me theirs. Taken separately, they're unacceptable and untenable."
In November 1983, while looking for a job after graduation, Obama wrote about the all-too-real concept of having to put off his dreams for a while until he had earned enough money to pursue them. "Salaries in the community organizations are too low to survive on right now, so I hope to work in some more conventional capacity for a year, allowing me to store up enough nuts to pursue those interests next," he wrote. Later, in April 1984, after taking a job at Business International that he feared had "stalled" the growth of his values, he continued to look forward to a brighter future where he could make a greater contribution to society. "My ideas aren't as crystallized as they were while in school, but they have an immediacy and weight that may be more useful if and when I'm less observer and more participant."
TBH, pretty sure serving as president of the United States for eight years qualifies as being a "participant" — way to predict the future, young Barry!
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