The Road Ends Here

61 -59.

Duke wins it's fourth National Championship.

Along the way, Butler's Hollywood ending wasn't so Hollywood, as it turns out that their best player's heave from halfcourt at the buzzer hits the backboard, hits the rim, and bounces back out - along with the hopes and dreams of the hometown fans watching in the stadium cheering for the hometown Bulldogs.

To say that this game was a classic would be a great understatement. Advertised as an encore of David vs. Goliath, it was Butler, a non-BCS team, going against the rich history of Duke, considered as college basketball royalty.

Experts predicted a blowout win for Duke, basing this on the Semifinal performance of the Blue Devils. However, it didn't turn out anywhere near that forecast - from start to finish, the scoreboard never showed a definite winner until the final, waning seconds of the game. It was truly a game that deserved its moniker of a National Championship game, one that had everything one could ask for.

However, one of the things that really took me in was the event's theme - The Road Ends Here. It signified that the long journey towards college basketball glory was right here, right now. It reminded the people involved that all the effort put it for the past year and the years before that would lead to where they were standing at right now - a chance to play for glory, a chance to play their way into basketball history as the best title one could be given - a champion.

Yet, looking past the ambiance of basketball and the drama that always goes with it, there was something about the theme that made me realize something - and that in everything that happens, there will always be a place and time where all your efforts can be assessed and where they will lead you. It doesn't have to be a huge stadium with thousands of screaming fans, or even a conference hall filled with men in suits and ties. No, what would matter most in that event is the meaning behind everything you've worked for, all the ups and downs, all the sacrifices, all the emotional burdens, all the decisions made, everything that led you to the promise of a paradise, where one would eventually get the goal intended - and maybe even more.

You see, there's this thing called a journey through life. Some people call it a road of life, yet to say that it a road would imply that one simply has to follow the way to wherever it would lead the traveler. This isn't the case. Because in that journey, there isn't a road. There isn't a stereotype that you would simply follow, and by the end of the road you would get what you want. There isn't an asphalted way that one simply has to put one foot in front of the other numerous times in order to get what they want - no, it isn't as simple as that. When one speaks of the road, what it really implies is the road that we, ourselves, have to make. In this journey, we make our own roads, using the freedom given to us to direct that road to wherever we want it to go. And personally, this is what makes life such a wonder to have - that for all the universal laws that govern everything, that for all the structured systems put up, that for all the awe and wonder that it can give - in the end, it will be up to us to make use of that and make sure that the thoughts that we once had will become the reality which we all aspire for.

The roads we build sometimes cross the roads other build - and for some unknown reason, we choose to go ahead and make the road together. Right now, I'm trying to make this less of a concept and more of a possibility, but even that still remains to be seen.

For all the care I can give, maybe our road may end here - but that doesn't mean I wouldn't try to keep it going.

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sticks and stone may break my bones.