Do you know that feeling when you ask yourself, “Shouldn’t I be doing something right now? Meeting someone or having an adventure or hanging out with people?” I can’t get over the sense that I am in my early twenties and live a somewhat solitary, dull life. Not quite what I had expected after moving to California—that’s for sure.
It’s weird to sit and just…be. It’s weird to want more when all you want is to enjoy the simplicity of the day and of relaxing.
I had this wonderful, rejuvenating talk with one of my best friends last night, and she helped me to see that I’m still putting a lot of pressure on myself to have life just magically be settled in here in California; I moved only two months ago, and most of that time has been spent working long days. I just need to accept that time, time, time will help me.
I wish that I could stop resisting and give in to God’s grace. Clearly blessings abound, and yet I fixate on what could be improved and changed. I want more and less and different things, constantly, always. It’s tiring and exhausting, and to be honest, more than anything I have an insatiable desire for contentment.
Wandering, wandering aimless and solitary. People that I love, far, far and away keep reigning me back in, keeping me centered, sustaining me, helping me to recognize that even though college has never been more done and closed off, its love and blessings keep pouring forth. My friends won’t give up on me, even as I waver, falter, and trip up for months on end.
Really others are the ones who keep showing me that this “new” life doesn’t have to be an ending, and even with this seemingly foolish choice to move across the country, great things await me. Selfishly, I cling to the hope that life will grow better and better, that God will grace me with the wealth of joys that have hitherto been my privilege.
So I sit here. Reflecting, wondering how best to spend my one day of “freedom” from stress—wandering around town, shopping, the beach, praying, all of the above. Who knows? Wherever I go, whatever I do, I crave the grace of peace and the joy of feeling content with who I am and what I want.
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Thanksgiving Break
Every day I try to open my apartment with my classroom key. I pull staplers out of my backpack and slinkys out of my pockets. When I open google docs, I automatically open the detention submission form when I’m looking for something else. Everything I do, therefore, is a confirmation that teaching has completely taken over my life.
I used to take for granted how wonderful it was to only worry about my education—and no one else’s. The first month of teaching has been really, really, really hard, and I increasingly realize that I had no idea what it meant to be a teacher. I work longer hours, juggle more things mentally, and perform more impromptu public speaking than I had ever thought myself capable of.
My life here is so completely different than I had imagined. The school year is flying by, and yet I ask myself, how the hell am I going to make it until May? I do feel pretty isolated, and sometimes it feels like my life is simply back-and-forth—school-to-home-and-back-once-more. A sprint to Friday. A short breath in until Monday.
As a solace, I imagine Thanksgiving break, Christmas break, summer break, and life-post-TFA. Not exactly positive thinking, huh? I can’t get over the feeling that I’m in an interim period, even though I’m getting increasingly settled in every day.
I know the route to school like the back of my hand. I’ve developed a mental map of fast food and Target locations; I’ve slipped into a routine rather naturally. But I can’t deny that when I get home and slip off my watch—a new acquisition for teaching—I wish that time could stop dictating my life. I work more than I should, sleep less than I should, and carefully budget the minutes of every step of the day: will I make it to school on-time? Give students enough time to access their lockers? Enough time to complete the short writing assignment? Enough time to share with a partner, to take the exit ticket, to clean up their materials, to learn the material? I carefully budget time, endlessly, ceaselessly, so that I am ever so cognizant of the fact that I do not have enough time. Never enough.
Sometimes it feels as though the days drag on and on and on and then the weeks fly by. I keep hearing, “If you can make it to Thanksgiving, you can survive this year.” Well, I sure hope Thanksgiving will arrive quickly.
Currently I’m squeezing in doctor appointments, searching for a couch, slipping in a few last beach days before fall completely sets in, planning a unit, reorganizing seating charts, searching for vocab words, and scouting out flights home for Christmas. It feels like a maze of tasks that I am doomed to leave unfinished.
Yet, I try to reassure myself. My tummy has calmed down a bit as I head to school; my body has accustomed itself (mostly) to standing for long periods; my voice is gaining endurance; my nerves and confidence are learning to withstand the threat of teenage comments. Gradually, gradually I am becoming used to this new life of mine. How I hope that my teaching will show these steps forward and feel increasingly "right."
51 days. That’s all that stands between me and my supposed guaranteed survival as a first-year teacher.
But who’s counting the days, right?
I used to take for granted how wonderful it was to only worry about my education—and no one else’s. The first month of teaching has been really, really, really hard, and I increasingly realize that I had no idea what it meant to be a teacher. I work longer hours, juggle more things mentally, and perform more impromptu public speaking than I had ever thought myself capable of.
My life here is so completely different than I had imagined. The school year is flying by, and yet I ask myself, how the hell am I going to make it until May? I do feel pretty isolated, and sometimes it feels like my life is simply back-and-forth—school-to-home-and-back-once-more. A sprint to Friday. A short breath in until Monday.
As a solace, I imagine Thanksgiving break, Christmas break, summer break, and life-post-TFA. Not exactly positive thinking, huh? I can’t get over the feeling that I’m in an interim period, even though I’m getting increasingly settled in every day.
I know the route to school like the back of my hand. I’ve developed a mental map of fast food and Target locations; I’ve slipped into a routine rather naturally. But I can’t deny that when I get home and slip off my watch—a new acquisition for teaching—I wish that time could stop dictating my life. I work more than I should, sleep less than I should, and carefully budget the minutes of every step of the day: will I make it to school on-time? Give students enough time to access their lockers? Enough time to complete the short writing assignment? Enough time to share with a partner, to take the exit ticket, to clean up their materials, to learn the material? I carefully budget time, endlessly, ceaselessly, so that I am ever so cognizant of the fact that I do not have enough time. Never enough.
Sometimes it feels as though the days drag on and on and on and then the weeks fly by. I keep hearing, “If you can make it to Thanksgiving, you can survive this year.” Well, I sure hope Thanksgiving will arrive quickly.
Currently I’m squeezing in doctor appointments, searching for a couch, slipping in a few last beach days before fall completely sets in, planning a unit, reorganizing seating charts, searching for vocab words, and scouting out flights home for Christmas. It feels like a maze of tasks that I am doomed to leave unfinished.
Yet, I try to reassure myself. My tummy has calmed down a bit as I head to school; my body has accustomed itself (mostly) to standing for long periods; my voice is gaining endurance; my nerves and confidence are learning to withstand the threat of teenage comments. Gradually, gradually I am becoming used to this new life of mine. How I hope that my teaching will show these steps forward and feel increasingly "right."
51 days. That’s all that stands between me and my supposed guaranteed survival as a first-year teacher.
But who’s counting the days, right?
Monday, September 3, 2012
Week One, Check
I crawled up the mountain. Asking myself all the while, why are you doing this? I listened to this song, and as the sun glinted off the redwood trees and the sea breeze beckoned, my bitterness abated—slightly. Ever since I’ve been in California, traffic jams have followed me like the plague—unexplained and unwanted. It’s like you cross an invisible line and suddenly cars are moving again, and the forces of the universe have decided to finish tormenting you for awhile. I never knew how much of a leg workout driving could be until I came to California and sat in just-slightly-moving-almost-stand-still traffic for an hour.
Driving and dealing with traffic has become such a huge part of my lifestyle here. I have so much thinking time in the car, and as the traffic jam came to a conclusion in the Santa Cruz mountains, my euphoria kicked in suddenly, as it is wont to do. The drive became like a game, with fast twists and turns, my grin broadening as my stomach did tiny flips. Closer, closer, and then yes—there she was: the ocean once more.
It’s not until I see the ocean that it ever really hits me that I’m here, in California. I mean, there are moments when I’m paying exorbitant amounts for gas and find a compost bin at an eatery and hear someone say “look it!” that it all comes together. But it’s really on the beach that my new home hits me, like being knocked over, breath gone, eyes wide, soaking the impact in.
Saturday was just what I needed after a long, long, long first week at school.
_____________________________________________
I couldn’t sleep, tossing and turning, the chill of the night air pervading my room and shoving aside remnants of my wispy dreams as I checked my phone again—not quite yet. I hadn’t believed people when they said you often didn’t sleep the night before school begins as a teacher. And yet there I was, anxious, worried I would oversleep and begin the school year even more foolishly than I already anticipated.
I finally arose from bed, certainly not refreshed, nauseous, anxious, and groggy. As I rushed to school, it was impossible to ignore the long list of things that could go horribly, horribly wrong. I continued to picture that scary being, “my students,” a collective, intimidating force to be reckoned with. I opened the door to let them enter my room, shaking, flustered, feeling clammy and inadequate. A laugh almost rose up, in response to the thought of how I used to take the first day of school for granted, worrying about what I would wear rather than what I would teach.
My students didn’t do me in, though they certainly tested me again and again during my first week. It was a silent series of battles to see how far I could be pushed, how gullible and lenient I am, how much I would enforce the rules I spouted off. Again and again I stuck it out, feeling unsure of myself, braving some conjured up confidence.
My lesson planning has become a little easier, both as my confidence has lost a bit of its shakiness and my audience has gained an identity. Teaching is so….different, so much more difficult than I had ever anticipated. My mind nearly implodes under the weight of so many things to remember and do and enforce and teach. Frequently I just collapse on the ground after my last round of students rush out—exhausted and drained.
I’m learning, growing, struggling, persevering. Same old, same old. Just moving forward, relentlessly.
__________________________________________
Life here makes me question what is next, what is next, what is next? A litany of possibilities and questions and uncertainties, both about the immediate future and two years down the line. Teaching is great and horrible and one of the most rigorous challenges I have yet undergone. Perhaps it is a source of comfort now, then, to consider what lies ahead.
I never imagined that I would feel at such a loss for the perfect job for me. I find myself wondering “If not teaching, then….”
That said, California has welcomed me in and there does exist that un-confronted possibility that this may be it—the place I really settle down in, the home I’ve been searching for, the job I love, the permanent “future” that eludes me.
Things continue to fall into place—my apartment, bed, car, classroom, local grocery store, target, going out places, relationships, bills, etc. My adult identity is being built from the ground up, one payment and tedious to-do checked off a long list. Per usual, I look at the past with idealism, romanticizing it, missing it, seeking refuge in it when tired and rather defeated.
To my utmost, I am trying to enjoy the here and now. Reveling in small joys and sunny days and positive interactions with students. Life is settling down, smoothing out into a busy, busy routine.
Here I am. A college graduate, teacher, adult, Californian resident.
Driving and dealing with traffic has become such a huge part of my lifestyle here. I have so much thinking time in the car, and as the traffic jam came to a conclusion in the Santa Cruz mountains, my euphoria kicked in suddenly, as it is wont to do. The drive became like a game, with fast twists and turns, my grin broadening as my stomach did tiny flips. Closer, closer, and then yes—there she was: the ocean once more.
It’s not until I see the ocean that it ever really hits me that I’m here, in California. I mean, there are moments when I’m paying exorbitant amounts for gas and find a compost bin at an eatery and hear someone say “look it!” that it all comes together. But it’s really on the beach that my new home hits me, like being knocked over, breath gone, eyes wide, soaking the impact in.
Saturday was just what I needed after a long, long, long first week at school.
_____________________________________________
I couldn’t sleep, tossing and turning, the chill of the night air pervading my room and shoving aside remnants of my wispy dreams as I checked my phone again—not quite yet. I hadn’t believed people when they said you often didn’t sleep the night before school begins as a teacher. And yet there I was, anxious, worried I would oversleep and begin the school year even more foolishly than I already anticipated.
I finally arose from bed, certainly not refreshed, nauseous, anxious, and groggy. As I rushed to school, it was impossible to ignore the long list of things that could go horribly, horribly wrong. I continued to picture that scary being, “my students,” a collective, intimidating force to be reckoned with. I opened the door to let them enter my room, shaking, flustered, feeling clammy and inadequate. A laugh almost rose up, in response to the thought of how I used to take the first day of school for granted, worrying about what I would wear rather than what I would teach.
My students didn’t do me in, though they certainly tested me again and again during my first week. It was a silent series of battles to see how far I could be pushed, how gullible and lenient I am, how much I would enforce the rules I spouted off. Again and again I stuck it out, feeling unsure of myself, braving some conjured up confidence.
My lesson planning has become a little easier, both as my confidence has lost a bit of its shakiness and my audience has gained an identity. Teaching is so….different, so much more difficult than I had ever anticipated. My mind nearly implodes under the weight of so many things to remember and do and enforce and teach. Frequently I just collapse on the ground after my last round of students rush out—exhausted and drained.
I’m learning, growing, struggling, persevering. Same old, same old. Just moving forward, relentlessly.
__________________________________________
Life here makes me question what is next, what is next, what is next? A litany of possibilities and questions and uncertainties, both about the immediate future and two years down the line. Teaching is great and horrible and one of the most rigorous challenges I have yet undergone. Perhaps it is a source of comfort now, then, to consider what lies ahead.
I never imagined that I would feel at such a loss for the perfect job for me. I find myself wondering “If not teaching, then….”
That said, California has welcomed me in and there does exist that un-confronted possibility that this may be it—the place I really settle down in, the home I’ve been searching for, the job I love, the permanent “future” that eludes me.
Things continue to fall into place—my apartment, bed, car, classroom, local grocery store, target, going out places, relationships, bills, etc. My adult identity is being built from the ground up, one payment and tedious to-do checked off a long list. Per usual, I look at the past with idealism, romanticizing it, missing it, seeking refuge in it when tired and rather defeated.
To my utmost, I am trying to enjoy the here and now. Reveling in small joys and sunny days and positive interactions with students. Life is settling down, smoothing out into a busy, busy routine.
Here I am. A college graduate, teacher, adult, Californian resident.
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Life Here So Far
My life in California thus far has been a dream, and I have been remiss in not writing about it sooner. I cannot believe I have been here for a month already. How did that happen?!? It feels like days. Weeks. Months. Years. A few moments and forever, concurrently.
Right now I’m looking out my window, at 5:00 a.m., waiting for the sunrise and thinking about how much I’ve learned. Last night I took a nap when I got home from school and it accidentally turned into twelve hours. I needed it after a long and crazy week.
Since I began induction in Berkeley and then Summer Institute here in LA, my time has not felt like my own. I got caught up in this movement that sucks one in and saps one’s energies and possesses one’s faculties. It feels like everything I am and everything I have has been funneled into becoming a teacher this month.
I’m trying to take a few deep breaths. Step back. Think about how far I have come. Teaching is both everything I thought it would be and much more, too. I hadn’t realized how quickly a group of students could become my students, who I want to succeed more than anything. I hadn’t anticipated exactly how mentally taxing teaching would be, standing at the front of the room, thinking “Will I finish in time? That student is not paying attention. That student is not understanding a word that I am saying. What is the next part of my lesson plan? How did I forget to mention that? How much time is left now? That student is about to act out, I need to prevent it. Now I need to get back to the front of the room and wrap up this explanation. Is the AC on? Why are they looking so tired?” At the end of the day, I am mostly just mentally exhausted. I certainly haven’t been getting enough sleep, but it is the fact that I myself am experiencing such a steep learning curve while trying to get my students to do the same that has worn me out.
I’m getting better and better though. Improving every day. And it’s becoming easier to imagine my life here, after Institute finishes, when I settle into my permanent school. I’ve seen the campus, am looking for apartments, thinking about what car I want to buy. I’ve met so many wonderful people, and it is clear stress bonds people in incredible ways.
And what about California itself?, you might ask. I only spent a brief time in the Bay Area, and a few weeks here in LA. I can already tell that the Bay is a better fit for me, but to be honest, I haven’t spent nearly enough time in the city here. I’ve been to Santa Monica beach and wondered around Venice a bit, but that’s as far as I have ventured so far. Santa Monica was everything I had dreamed it would be. The surreal nature of my time here climaxed as I looked out over the ocean from the soft, warm sand. Is this real? Is this my life now?, I wondered.
The rest of my time has been spent here on campus and at my school that I teach at. California is just…much different than I anticipated. It’s colder, because I’ve been on the coast this whole time. The view from my window is of palm trees, and I can watch the sunset over the ocean every night. It looks as though the sun is setting not on the horizon but at the end of the earth. Fading into beautiful nonexistence only to rise once more. My LA is that of foggy early mornings, breathless twilights, and calm and quiet nights—a teacher’s LA, I suppose. I want to see so much more, and part of me thinks that I will need to take a weekend trip to return here later this year, when I have the time and energy to really enjoy the city.
I’ll be here for two more weeks, and that’s it. Somehow Institute is already half over. I have so, so, so much to learn and work to do yet. So many moments to enjoy with friends. I’m frustrated and burned out; I’m at peace and rejuvenated; I’m weary and careworn. I’m everything at once but mostly, I am trying to humbly hand over my life to God to do with as He pleases. I have students that I am working for now. I want to be the best teacher possible for them. I want to be excited to return to school Monday morning. I want to treat every moment with precious care, investing it in helping my students learn more and more and more. Strengthen and renew me, Lord.
There’s a great deal to come. Even I can see that.
Right now I’m looking out my window, at 5:00 a.m., waiting for the sunrise and thinking about how much I’ve learned. Last night I took a nap when I got home from school and it accidentally turned into twelve hours. I needed it after a long and crazy week.
Since I began induction in Berkeley and then Summer Institute here in LA, my time has not felt like my own. I got caught up in this movement that sucks one in and saps one’s energies and possesses one’s faculties. It feels like everything I am and everything I have has been funneled into becoming a teacher this month.
I’m trying to take a few deep breaths. Step back. Think about how far I have come. Teaching is both everything I thought it would be and much more, too. I hadn’t realized how quickly a group of students could become my students, who I want to succeed more than anything. I hadn’t anticipated exactly how mentally taxing teaching would be, standing at the front of the room, thinking “Will I finish in time? That student is not paying attention. That student is not understanding a word that I am saying. What is the next part of my lesson plan? How did I forget to mention that? How much time is left now? That student is about to act out, I need to prevent it. Now I need to get back to the front of the room and wrap up this explanation. Is the AC on? Why are they looking so tired?” At the end of the day, I am mostly just mentally exhausted. I certainly haven’t been getting enough sleep, but it is the fact that I myself am experiencing such a steep learning curve while trying to get my students to do the same that has worn me out.
I’m getting better and better though. Improving every day. And it’s becoming easier to imagine my life here, after Institute finishes, when I settle into my permanent school. I’ve seen the campus, am looking for apartments, thinking about what car I want to buy. I’ve met so many wonderful people, and it is clear stress bonds people in incredible ways.
And what about California itself?, you might ask. I only spent a brief time in the Bay Area, and a few weeks here in LA. I can already tell that the Bay is a better fit for me, but to be honest, I haven’t spent nearly enough time in the city here. I’ve been to Santa Monica beach and wondered around Venice a bit, but that’s as far as I have ventured so far. Santa Monica was everything I had dreamed it would be. The surreal nature of my time here climaxed as I looked out over the ocean from the soft, warm sand. Is this real? Is this my life now?, I wondered.
The rest of my time has been spent here on campus and at my school that I teach at. California is just…much different than I anticipated. It’s colder, because I’ve been on the coast this whole time. The view from my window is of palm trees, and I can watch the sunset over the ocean every night. It looks as though the sun is setting not on the horizon but at the end of the earth. Fading into beautiful nonexistence only to rise once more. My LA is that of foggy early mornings, breathless twilights, and calm and quiet nights—a teacher’s LA, I suppose. I want to see so much more, and part of me thinks that I will need to take a weekend trip to return here later this year, when I have the time and energy to really enjoy the city.
I’ll be here for two more weeks, and that’s it. Somehow Institute is already half over. I have so, so, so much to learn and work to do yet. So many moments to enjoy with friends. I’m frustrated and burned out; I’m at peace and rejuvenated; I’m weary and careworn. I’m everything at once but mostly, I am trying to humbly hand over my life to God to do with as He pleases. I have students that I am working for now. I want to be the best teacher possible for them. I want to be excited to return to school Monday morning. I want to treat every moment with precious care, investing it in helping my students learn more and more and more. Strengthen and renew me, Lord.
There’s a great deal to come. Even I can see that.
Monday, June 18, 2012
Cali-forn-I-A
As usual, I am saving this blog post until the last minute, in the midst of departure chaos. It’s two a.m., and I write this as the last of many loads of laundry finishes, packed suitcases strewn about me. I leave in a little over two hours for an insanely early flight to San Francisco; today is the day I begin my life in California.
It’s funny how we as humans experience repeat fears. Even though we’ve conquered the fears before, repeatedly, and proven they were silly, overly-dramatic, or ill-founded, we nonetheless experience them once more like the futilistic beings we are. I have that standing-on-a-precipe-that-looms-over-something-huge-something-potentially-life-changing-and-magnificent-but-terrifying-in-its-unknownness feeling again—just as I felt before I went to Georgetown as a freshman, before I departed for England, and before I returned to Georgetown as a senior. California stands before me in all its sunshiny, pop-culturey, glamorous glory that gained it prominence in American consciousness.
And I stand a region away, smack-dab in the middle of my Midwestern home, feeling indifferent and lazy. Because for me, California is not a dream world, a vacation locale, or a vision of summer relaxation. For me, California is a wake-up call to adulthood. There I will have to go through a crash-course in learning to teach, begin my first grown-up job, find a car, hunt down an apartment, and slowly build up a social network that was almost ready-made at college (“Here’s your assigned dorm, classes you have to take, study abroad opportunities, meal plans, and clubs/groups that will almost certainly provide you with friends.”). I’m feeling reluctant to begin once more; just as our strengths are often our weaknesses, what is exciting about California is also what makes me wary of it.
So here’s the root of it at last: I miss Georgetown and recognize that I am not likely to find that kind of community again. Yes, yes, I know that the best can and probably does lie before me. But I acknowledge that I was ridiculously blessed to have lived the life I led at Georgetown, with a phenomenal community of people who strove to pursue social justice and thrived in an intellectual environment. I finally felt settled in, cozy with a home—a home that I had created for myself with like-minded yet diverse family members.
Now, after a lovely few weeks at home with my family and friends, spent simultaneously avoiding and recovering from grief following my departure from Georgetown, it’s time to leave again. Start over. Invest myself in yet another place. A very wise and beloved friend told me that I should allow myself the time to be unexcited before I prod myself into feeling ready for the next stage of my life. I needed this indifferent, even bitter, time to mull over the sense that God has taken something from me. He took away one home and now has set a challenge before me. I just need to accept it and trust Him and comfort myself with the fact that new has proven exciting, rewarding, and fulfilling time and again in my life.
This time, undoubtedly, the future will once more prove a blessing from God. So, yes, I am ready. Mostly because I cannot be anything else—my plane departs in just a few hours.
Here we go.
It’s funny how we as humans experience repeat fears. Even though we’ve conquered the fears before, repeatedly, and proven they were silly, overly-dramatic, or ill-founded, we nonetheless experience them once more like the futilistic beings we are. I have that standing-on-a-precipe-that-looms-over-something-huge-something-potentially-life-changing-and-magnificent-but-terrifying-in-its-unknownness feeling again—just as I felt before I went to Georgetown as a freshman, before I departed for England, and before I returned to Georgetown as a senior. California stands before me in all its sunshiny, pop-culturey, glamorous glory that gained it prominence in American consciousness.
And I stand a region away, smack-dab in the middle of my Midwestern home, feeling indifferent and lazy. Because for me, California is not a dream world, a vacation locale, or a vision of summer relaxation. For me, California is a wake-up call to adulthood. There I will have to go through a crash-course in learning to teach, begin my first grown-up job, find a car, hunt down an apartment, and slowly build up a social network that was almost ready-made at college (“Here’s your assigned dorm, classes you have to take, study abroad opportunities, meal plans, and clubs/groups that will almost certainly provide you with friends.”). I’m feeling reluctant to begin once more; just as our strengths are often our weaknesses, what is exciting about California is also what makes me wary of it.
So here’s the root of it at last: I miss Georgetown and recognize that I am not likely to find that kind of community again. Yes, yes, I know that the best can and probably does lie before me. But I acknowledge that I was ridiculously blessed to have lived the life I led at Georgetown, with a phenomenal community of people who strove to pursue social justice and thrived in an intellectual environment. I finally felt settled in, cozy with a home—a home that I had created for myself with like-minded yet diverse family members.
Now, after a lovely few weeks at home with my family and friends, spent simultaneously avoiding and recovering from grief following my departure from Georgetown, it’s time to leave again. Start over. Invest myself in yet another place. A very wise and beloved friend told me that I should allow myself the time to be unexcited before I prod myself into feeling ready for the next stage of my life. I needed this indifferent, even bitter, time to mull over the sense that God has taken something from me. He took away one home and now has set a challenge before me. I just need to accept it and trust Him and comfort myself with the fact that new has proven exciting, rewarding, and fulfilling time and again in my life.
This time, undoubtedly, the future will once more prove a blessing from God. So, yes, I am ready. Mostly because I cannot be anything else—my plane departs in just a few hours.
Here we go.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
A Place Only You Can Go
I’ve been thinking in numbers lately: miles between, hours left, moments enjoyed, pounds of belongings, dollars spent, years passing. It feels as though all of these numbers are weighing upon me, stretching me thin, wearing me down. I was recently told that God will break your heart again and again until it is left open. It certainly feels like my chest is open, vulnerable and aching after a series of grueling goodbyes. I’m not a crier, but the past few days have tested my emotions and prompted a few breakdowns.
When I studied abroad at Oxford, I questioned, despite myself, if I would have a great senior year at Georgetown or if I would spend the year wishing I could return to England. Yet, this week has been a long moment of divine grace—one of those times when you can finally see God’s hand as He blesses your tiny existence with belonging, rightness, beauty, and poignant joy. Senior week—beginning with a retreat and ending with baccalaureate mass—has been a culmination of everything wonderful in my year: friendship, Jesuit identity, spirituality, community, new experiences, family.
The week feels as though it lasted months, rich with beautiful moments, and yet, as though it also evaporated, leaving me with nothing left to grasp onto except some wispy memories, snapshots of vivid, disparate experiences that are already fading. Rolling down a hill, gasping for air. A Nats game in drizzling rain. Singing "Call Me Maybe" in unison at Leo’s. Standing at Frederick Douglas’s house. Splashing in the fountain. Mingling in Riggs and listening to my professors’ last lectures in awe. Watching my classmates being awarded honors with pride. Welcoming my family to my city. Entering Union Station for the Senior Ball, crossing the stage to receive my diploma, looking upon the crowd at mass on the front lawn, picnics in the early evening. The faces of people I love passing before me. The places I love fading in and out of focus. The experiences I have cherished dogpiling, conflating, blending together into a dizzying whirlwind of a week.
And now it’s done. Just like that. My belongings collected, hugs given, thank you’s sent, last’s had. A friend told me that we often put too much pressure on last’s—if the last time doing something is bad, okay, or great, it cannot touch, change, or negate all the previous times experienced. I’ve done my best this week to say yes to doing everything, to avoid infusing moments with nostalgia and sadness, and to appreciate my friends and family.
But this is so hard, so much harder than I would ever have imagined. I feel like of all the places I have lived and loved, Georgetown is the place where I have belonged the most. In some ways I feel like Margaret from North and South, finally realizing I have perhaps romanticized Helstone too much and that I do love Milton after all. Oxford was the best year of my life, but this year has equaled last year’s greatness in different ways. I see now that Oxford wasn’t an independent year, separate from my Georgetown career. It was a chapter of my college career that helped me to grow tremendously and to mature into an appreciation of my home university. I can’t regret the times I felt lonely and weary and discouraged, for they led to this year when I felt surrounded by love and invested in a strong community that challenged me to grow in new ways.
It’s funny how hard it is to leave a place of your own volition. I kept thinking, “Just get off the bus. Go back. POOR LIFE CHOICE. Why are you so masochistic? You don’t have to leave.” But I did. And it made me think of something my little brother mentioned when he came to visit me in England: “I hadn’t realized how hard it is to be the one who leaves as opposed to the one being left.” I watched the last of my friends fade in the distance, as I moved forward, past them, past home, past what I wanted to do—stay. Simply stay.
I’m home now, revived with sleep that I needed pretty badly, enjoying driving, spending time with family and friends, and seeing my dog again at long last. I have projects lined up and much to do over the coming weeks, but for now…I’m firmly in denial that I have graduated and that I will not be returning to Georgetown. Healthy, right? But really, how am I supposed to convince myself that this really is it, that this isn’t a summer break or a trip abroad—this was the end, the “final chapter”?
I’m concocting schemes to keep in touch with friends—my now indefinite long-distance friends—to the best of my ability. I’m already daydreaming of lying on the lawn at Georgetown, peacefully and quietly, because it has become a place worth dreaming of for me, a home where I feel at peace, comfortable, and safe. But most of all, beyond these distractions and avoidances and plans, I’m comforting myself with another piece of encouragement I received—the best is yet to come. People say college years are the best of your life, but you have so many wonderful things in store for you. Life is anything but over.
Bring me peace, Lord. Keep me centered. Help me to handle my grief and find joy this summer.
When I studied abroad at Oxford, I questioned, despite myself, if I would have a great senior year at Georgetown or if I would spend the year wishing I could return to England. Yet, this week has been a long moment of divine grace—one of those times when you can finally see God’s hand as He blesses your tiny existence with belonging, rightness, beauty, and poignant joy. Senior week—beginning with a retreat and ending with baccalaureate mass—has been a culmination of everything wonderful in my year: friendship, Jesuit identity, spirituality, community, new experiences, family.
The week feels as though it lasted months, rich with beautiful moments, and yet, as though it also evaporated, leaving me with nothing left to grasp onto except some wispy memories, snapshots of vivid, disparate experiences that are already fading. Rolling down a hill, gasping for air. A Nats game in drizzling rain. Singing "Call Me Maybe" in unison at Leo’s. Standing at Frederick Douglas’s house. Splashing in the fountain. Mingling in Riggs and listening to my professors’ last lectures in awe. Watching my classmates being awarded honors with pride. Welcoming my family to my city. Entering Union Station for the Senior Ball, crossing the stage to receive my diploma, looking upon the crowd at mass on the front lawn, picnics in the early evening. The faces of people I love passing before me. The places I love fading in and out of focus. The experiences I have cherished dogpiling, conflating, blending together into a dizzying whirlwind of a week.
And now it’s done. Just like that. My belongings collected, hugs given, thank you’s sent, last’s had. A friend told me that we often put too much pressure on last’s—if the last time doing something is bad, okay, or great, it cannot touch, change, or negate all the previous times experienced. I’ve done my best this week to say yes to doing everything, to avoid infusing moments with nostalgia and sadness, and to appreciate my friends and family.
But this is so hard, so much harder than I would ever have imagined. I feel like of all the places I have lived and loved, Georgetown is the place where I have belonged the most. In some ways I feel like Margaret from North and South, finally realizing I have perhaps romanticized Helstone too much and that I do love Milton after all. Oxford was the best year of my life, but this year has equaled last year’s greatness in different ways. I see now that Oxford wasn’t an independent year, separate from my Georgetown career. It was a chapter of my college career that helped me to grow tremendously and to mature into an appreciation of my home university. I can’t regret the times I felt lonely and weary and discouraged, for they led to this year when I felt surrounded by love and invested in a strong community that challenged me to grow in new ways.
It’s funny how hard it is to leave a place of your own volition. I kept thinking, “Just get off the bus. Go back. POOR LIFE CHOICE. Why are you so masochistic? You don’t have to leave.” But I did. And it made me think of something my little brother mentioned when he came to visit me in England: “I hadn’t realized how hard it is to be the one who leaves as opposed to the one being left.” I watched the last of my friends fade in the distance, as I moved forward, past them, past home, past what I wanted to do—stay. Simply stay.
I’m home now, revived with sleep that I needed pretty badly, enjoying driving, spending time with family and friends, and seeing my dog again at long last. I have projects lined up and much to do over the coming weeks, but for now…I’m firmly in denial that I have graduated and that I will not be returning to Georgetown. Healthy, right? But really, how am I supposed to convince myself that this really is it, that this isn’t a summer break or a trip abroad—this was the end, the “final chapter”?
I’m concocting schemes to keep in touch with friends—my now indefinite long-distance friends—to the best of my ability. I’m already daydreaming of lying on the lawn at Georgetown, peacefully and quietly, because it has become a place worth dreaming of for me, a home where I feel at peace, comfortable, and safe. But most of all, beyond these distractions and avoidances and plans, I’m comforting myself with another piece of encouragement I received—the best is yet to come. People say college years are the best of your life, but you have so many wonderful things in store for you. Life is anything but over.
Bring me peace, Lord. Keep me centered. Help me to handle my grief and find joy this summer.
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Packing Up, Up, and Away
Things are just things. That we love. Grow attached to. Feel a bit possessive of. Can’t imagine our lives without. Become saturated with memories, smells, significance.
Every time I have to move I am forced to confront precisely how many possessions I have, which makes me realize both how blessed I am and how I should weed out more of these superfluous things that fill up the space of my dresser, closet, shelves, room—of my life.
You wouldn’t believe how having to pack everything up and drag it across the country will encourage you to prioritize and figure out what you really care about. My trips from home to school have made me a wizened pro by now. But still…graduating in just a few weeks makes me cringe when I look around my room. Under my bed. In my drawers.
Things just have a way of accumulating, oozing out of spaces, often when you least expect it. It’s like trying to clean out your purse and envisioning throwing away wrappers and receipts and being left with your wallet, phone, lip gloss, sunglasses, and keys. Instead, ticket stubs, Kleenex, pamphlets, granola bars, hair ties, business cards, gum, forgotten notes, and pens just spill out, pile up, and refuse to disappear. I can’t throw them away because I might use them. I don’t want to carry them around because I might not use them. Should I save them? Throw ‘em in a drawer?
I contemplated packing up a suitcase this weekend, full of forgotten items and winter clothes and other inessentials. It’s just one more step en route to that inevitable end date. Oh, how I’d love to shove end dates in a drawer and forget them.
I know packing will be emotional. Nothing is just an item anymore, just a sign of my consumerism, just an accessory. Instead, I pick something up and feel its meanings, its history, the emotions tied up with it. My rain boots that I bought in England and trudged through Venice in. The picture frame my sister made and sent me. The book I bought last year, to use for my thesis. Packing becomes a dizzying array of prioritizing, organizing, and remembering—always remembering.
When I bought it, where I wore it, who I was with when I had it, what I intend to do with it, how I’ve changed since I received it.
One of my art projects this year was to paint a container of some kind—it could be anything, a room, one’s skull, hands cupping water, a train car. What about a suitcase though? Doesn’t it make an excellent self-portrait? A compartment of things that mattered enough to me to move across the country. The things I couldn’t leave behind. The accumulation of my life.
Just a few more weeks and this round of suitcases will be packed. But not quite yet.
Every time I have to move I am forced to confront precisely how many possessions I have, which makes me realize both how blessed I am and how I should weed out more of these superfluous things that fill up the space of my dresser, closet, shelves, room—of my life.
You wouldn’t believe how having to pack everything up and drag it across the country will encourage you to prioritize and figure out what you really care about. My trips from home to school have made me a wizened pro by now. But still…graduating in just a few weeks makes me cringe when I look around my room. Under my bed. In my drawers.
Things just have a way of accumulating, oozing out of spaces, often when you least expect it. It’s like trying to clean out your purse and envisioning throwing away wrappers and receipts and being left with your wallet, phone, lip gloss, sunglasses, and keys. Instead, ticket stubs, Kleenex, pamphlets, granola bars, hair ties, business cards, gum, forgotten notes, and pens just spill out, pile up, and refuse to disappear. I can’t throw them away because I might use them. I don’t want to carry them around because I might not use them. Should I save them? Throw ‘em in a drawer?
I contemplated packing up a suitcase this weekend, full of forgotten items and winter clothes and other inessentials. It’s just one more step en route to that inevitable end date. Oh, how I’d love to shove end dates in a drawer and forget them.
I know packing will be emotional. Nothing is just an item anymore, just a sign of my consumerism, just an accessory. Instead, I pick something up and feel its meanings, its history, the emotions tied up with it. My rain boots that I bought in England and trudged through Venice in. The picture frame my sister made and sent me. The book I bought last year, to use for my thesis. Packing becomes a dizzying array of prioritizing, organizing, and remembering—always remembering.
When I bought it, where I wore it, who I was with when I had it, what I intend to do with it, how I’ve changed since I received it.
One of my art projects this year was to paint a container of some kind—it could be anything, a room, one’s skull, hands cupping water, a train car. What about a suitcase though? Doesn’t it make an excellent self-portrait? A compartment of things that mattered enough to me to move across the country. The things I couldn’t leave behind. The accumulation of my life.
Just a few more weeks and this round of suitcases will be packed. But not quite yet.
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Notes from Another Era
I love mail. Receiving a hand-written note is the equivalent of like a hundred facebook notifications and one email and four tweets. I was reading this article today and considering what it would mean to have a world without mail.
Then I stumbled across this article and questioned what it would mean to have a world without real conversation anymore.
I contemplated, while I walked across town yesterday, what it would be like to lose my headphones for a few weeks. To be forced to listen to conversation at the office, on the bus, at the library, to the sounds of the city on walks and runs, to the annoying snores and chatter and crying on airplanes—in short, to be disallowed from silencing out all that which I do not wish to listen to.
I crave a place of my own in a busy city setting; I miss driving in a car and having my bubble. In the urban environment, that private space is replicated by closing oneself off from others, from unwanted attention, from distractions. But what is the cost?
How many of us have texted in an elevator or car or some awkward social situation, to look busy, less alone, more connected? How many of us have seen young middle schoolers that post nearly constantly online about their appearances? There is, there simply must be, something disturbing about where our society is heading. I love technology and can’t imagine my life without it; it has enabled me to live across the country or world from my family and friends and feel connected to them.
But sometimes I feel like a woman from another age, another time. I want long letters. And to have these hours-long-deep-college conversations forever. I want to be good at phone calls and not lose sight of real human connection in the midst of easier contact. I want to be able to hold onto the beautiful, wise practices of the past even with all the progress we have made. And I want my kids someday to be able to talk to anyone, anytime, about anything like their grandmother.
I saw this Hallmark commercial recently that had people saying things like “Tell me you love me,” “Tell me 40 is just a number,” “Tell me I’m the most beautiful woman you have ever met,” “Tell me I’ve been the best mother to you.” I thought about the way that even greeting cards produce messages that people can just sign their names to. I want personal notes and for people I love to think through what they want to say to me, to deliberately construct personal and meaningful messages, and to know that they have taken the time to reach out to me, communicated by their handwriting.
I’m sure we’ll still have the post office for years and years to come. But it is fading, the need for it is fading. That can’t be denied and I certainly do not think it should be overlooked as inconsequential. It will affect all of us, even more than we realize.
Then I stumbled across this article and questioned what it would mean to have a world without real conversation anymore.
I contemplated, while I walked across town yesterday, what it would be like to lose my headphones for a few weeks. To be forced to listen to conversation at the office, on the bus, at the library, to the sounds of the city on walks and runs, to the annoying snores and chatter and crying on airplanes—in short, to be disallowed from silencing out all that which I do not wish to listen to.
I crave a place of my own in a busy city setting; I miss driving in a car and having my bubble. In the urban environment, that private space is replicated by closing oneself off from others, from unwanted attention, from distractions. But what is the cost?
How many of us have texted in an elevator or car or some awkward social situation, to look busy, less alone, more connected? How many of us have seen young middle schoolers that post nearly constantly online about their appearances? There is, there simply must be, something disturbing about where our society is heading. I love technology and can’t imagine my life without it; it has enabled me to live across the country or world from my family and friends and feel connected to them.
But sometimes I feel like a woman from another age, another time. I want long letters. And to have these hours-long-deep-college conversations forever. I want to be good at phone calls and not lose sight of real human connection in the midst of easier contact. I want to be able to hold onto the beautiful, wise practices of the past even with all the progress we have made. And I want my kids someday to be able to talk to anyone, anytime, about anything like their grandmother.
I saw this Hallmark commercial recently that had people saying things like “Tell me you love me,” “Tell me 40 is just a number,” “Tell me I’m the most beautiful woman you have ever met,” “Tell me I’ve been the best mother to you.” I thought about the way that even greeting cards produce messages that people can just sign their names to. I want personal notes and for people I love to think through what they want to say to me, to deliberately construct personal and meaningful messages, and to know that they have taken the time to reach out to me, communicated by their handwriting.
I’m sure we’ll still have the post office for years and years to come. But it is fading, the need for it is fading. That can’t be denied and I certainly do not think it should be overlooked as inconsequential. It will affect all of us, even more than we realize.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
My Thesis the Beastis
I imagined what it would feel like to finish my thesis. Surely it would be liberating; I wrote “FREEDOM” on my calendar, emblazoned across my due date and the days following. But instead, I felt…numb. It was surreal. I didn’t notice, caught up in a torrent of things I had put off until that mysterious time—post-thesis. Originally I had imagined myself thinking, “Oh, I need to write this section tonight…” before realizing I had already finished my thesis. But I didn’t slip into thinking about physiognomy in Charlotte Bronte’s novels (my thesis topic) unexpectedly. It was an off-switch—turned in, forgotten, a distant dream that I only vaguely recalled.
But it’s been a huge part of my year. A series of deadlines. A challenge to write more and better and deeper than I ever had before. I had envisioned, as an underclassman, what it meant to research independently, to delve into a topic and claim ownership over a specialized field. Of course, I had anticipated an adventurous hunt through dusty files at the Library of Congress and stumbling across never-before-seen important documents and a succession of ah-ha! moments.
Mostly it was perseverance. It was like entering into a committed relationship with my research topic, through highs and lows. I stuck with it even when frustrated and was surprised by its nuanced character and tried to learn more, ever more, about it. We had fall-outs, angsty separations, glorious reunions fueled by inspiration. I would discover new depths in Bronte’s novels, new ways to approach a rich passage, a sudden connection between sources, a fresh tactic that occurred to me while I brushed my teeth. As the year progressed, and the pages mounted, I occasionally lost sight of my original passion for my thesis, but it would usually resurface, drawing me back to my love of English literature, of writing, of engaging with critics.
It felt like I carved something out, created something worthwhile. My thesis was the culmination of a year’s work and furthermore, of my gradually maturing voice. I had this revelatory moment when I read the paper I wrote sophomore year that had sparked my whole thesis. Originally I considered my long paper about Villette to be the best paper I had ever written and anticipated being able to carry pages of that writing into my thesis with minimal editing. I was shocked when I pulled out that paper to read it over again. My writing from even just a year and a half ago seemed unfinished, young, rudimentary. I felt an immediate sense of panic—I had to start from scratch rather than with half of my chapter already written—but also a sense of accomplishment. Reading my own writing and knowing that I have come so far and matured as a critical writer emphasized my success in fulfilling one of my goals—having my thesis be the culmination of my whole undergraduate career.
Before I knew it the chapters were done. Then the Introduction I had dreaded. After a late night, the Conclusion—the Conclusion!—was written too. Around 80 pages of my writing—my writing. I thumbed through the pages, each one a small hallmark, a tiny accomplishment. I recalled the initial horror I felt at confronting my blank Word document, with its flashing, demanding cursor, which seemed to say, “Do you really think you can do this? FLASH. Write an entire thesis? FLASH. Write something if you can. FLASH. I don’t think you can. FLASH. I’m still waiting. FLASH.” Slowly but surely, page by page, chapter by chapter, novel by novel, I constructed, built my thesis, from the flashing cursor down and down, pages full of writing, from empty hands upwards into a pile of pages.
The Table of Contents cemented my realization that it was really coming together: I had written enough that people would need a map to navigate through my writing. A cover page. My acknowledgements. Each official, standard introductory page confirmed, “You’re done. You did it.” I printed off the copies, in shock, exhausted, in denial. Four clean, thick, beautiful copies. I hurried home to drop my things off before heading to Kinkos to have my copies bound. As I carefully descended the stairs, my foot caught on a piece of wood, and nearly four hundred pages flew from my hands and scattered, horrifyingly, around my feet. I stood there muttering curses before someone approached and helped me collect all my pages.
I slammed the door as I entered my apartment, cursing my clumsiness and reflecting on the idea that this was my "child," this thesis of mine. I had nurtured the project for months, given birth by paying for the painfully expensive copies, and suffered from a sense of separation anxiety—would my newborn suffer, released from the safety of my laptop into the world, open to criticism? And then on the way home from the maternity ward, I had dropped my newborn on the ground, battering it, dirtying it. Perfect. I sorted through the pages, reconstructing my chapters, smoothing the creased corners, scraping away a little dirt. My thesis was so imperfect, glaringly so after the fall, but it was done. Done. Finished. Completed. Accomplished. I had accomplished something. Perhaps not significant but real.
I know a great deal about an obscure and ridiculously specific topic that will not casually come in conversation—people don’t really discuss physiognomy randomly—and will probably fade slowly from my life. It’s discouraging to think that less than a handful of people will ever read my thesis. But I also know that this is the quintessential thesis process. Slaving away, dedicating oneself to a task, and then looking—not for external validation, because there is little to be had or found—for internal peace and self-found pride.
I survived my thesis. Somehow. And now I’m simply busy confronting all those comments I made over the last few months: “Well, after I finish my thesis…”
But it’s been a huge part of my year. A series of deadlines. A challenge to write more and better and deeper than I ever had before. I had envisioned, as an underclassman, what it meant to research independently, to delve into a topic and claim ownership over a specialized field. Of course, I had anticipated an adventurous hunt through dusty files at the Library of Congress and stumbling across never-before-seen important documents and a succession of ah-ha! moments.
Mostly it was perseverance. It was like entering into a committed relationship with my research topic, through highs and lows. I stuck with it even when frustrated and was surprised by its nuanced character and tried to learn more, ever more, about it. We had fall-outs, angsty separations, glorious reunions fueled by inspiration. I would discover new depths in Bronte’s novels, new ways to approach a rich passage, a sudden connection between sources, a fresh tactic that occurred to me while I brushed my teeth. As the year progressed, and the pages mounted, I occasionally lost sight of my original passion for my thesis, but it would usually resurface, drawing me back to my love of English literature, of writing, of engaging with critics.
It felt like I carved something out, created something worthwhile. My thesis was the culmination of a year’s work and furthermore, of my gradually maturing voice. I had this revelatory moment when I read the paper I wrote sophomore year that had sparked my whole thesis. Originally I considered my long paper about Villette to be the best paper I had ever written and anticipated being able to carry pages of that writing into my thesis with minimal editing. I was shocked when I pulled out that paper to read it over again. My writing from even just a year and a half ago seemed unfinished, young, rudimentary. I felt an immediate sense of panic—I had to start from scratch rather than with half of my chapter already written—but also a sense of accomplishment. Reading my own writing and knowing that I have come so far and matured as a critical writer emphasized my success in fulfilling one of my goals—having my thesis be the culmination of my whole undergraduate career.
Before I knew it the chapters were done. Then the Introduction I had dreaded. After a late night, the Conclusion—the Conclusion!—was written too. Around 80 pages of my writing—my writing. I thumbed through the pages, each one a small hallmark, a tiny accomplishment. I recalled the initial horror I felt at confronting my blank Word document, with its flashing, demanding cursor, which seemed to say, “Do you really think you can do this? FLASH. Write an entire thesis? FLASH. Write something if you can. FLASH. I don’t think you can. FLASH. I’m still waiting. FLASH.” Slowly but surely, page by page, chapter by chapter, novel by novel, I constructed, built my thesis, from the flashing cursor down and down, pages full of writing, from empty hands upwards into a pile of pages.
The Table of Contents cemented my realization that it was really coming together: I had written enough that people would need a map to navigate through my writing. A cover page. My acknowledgements. Each official, standard introductory page confirmed, “You’re done. You did it.” I printed off the copies, in shock, exhausted, in denial. Four clean, thick, beautiful copies. I hurried home to drop my things off before heading to Kinkos to have my copies bound. As I carefully descended the stairs, my foot caught on a piece of wood, and nearly four hundred pages flew from my hands and scattered, horrifyingly, around my feet. I stood there muttering curses before someone approached and helped me collect all my pages.
I slammed the door as I entered my apartment, cursing my clumsiness and reflecting on the idea that this was my "child," this thesis of mine. I had nurtured the project for months, given birth by paying for the painfully expensive copies, and suffered from a sense of separation anxiety—would my newborn suffer, released from the safety of my laptop into the world, open to criticism? And then on the way home from the maternity ward, I had dropped my newborn on the ground, battering it, dirtying it. Perfect. I sorted through the pages, reconstructing my chapters, smoothing the creased corners, scraping away a little dirt. My thesis was so imperfect, glaringly so after the fall, but it was done. Done. Finished. Completed. Accomplished. I had accomplished something. Perhaps not significant but real.
I know a great deal about an obscure and ridiculously specific topic that will not casually come in conversation—people don’t really discuss physiognomy randomly—and will probably fade slowly from my life. It’s discouraging to think that less than a handful of people will ever read my thesis. But I also know that this is the quintessential thesis process. Slaving away, dedicating oneself to a task, and then looking—not for external validation, because there is little to be had or found—for internal peace and self-found pride.
I survived my thesis. Somehow. And now I’m simply busy confronting all those comments I made over the last few months: “Well, after I finish my thesis…”
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
A String of Joys
I read in a book recently that a character spoke with a priest during reconciliation about hopelessness and anger. The priest recommended that he simply think of one thing that made him happy; before he knew it, a chain, a flood of happy things would come forth, as our joys are often interconnected.
I decided to try this exercise and hopefully integrate it into my life. Where better to begin than with my spring break? I’ve been incredibly happy this week with my feeling of being connected to and surrounded by people who love and support me: I had a wonderful time visiting some of my best friends in Connecticut; I miss my beloved roommates; and I have been catching up with my family, miles and miles from home.
As I’ve talked with my friends and family, I’ve been overwhelmed by their recent joys and achievements, including several acceptances to amazing schools and programs, weddings, and similar feelings of belonging to supportive communities.
I feel so blessed by the way in which God has enabled me to travel during college. This week, I visited Connecticut and New York City, ate amazing food, experienced awesome cultural sights, and had my return home to anticipate. It was so refreshing to look forward to my return to DC; the drive from Union Station to my apartment allowed me to soak up the calming energy of DC, which has become home to me. There’s something so powerful about claiming one’s city as one’s own, even without realizing it.
I was shopping today and indulging in some treats. The weather has been beautiful, and I felt strong, young, and capable as I walked around town, blessed with a disposable income to treat myself.
Even as I jumped back into my thesis work today, I looked down at my computer and remembered how wonderful it is to own technology that connects me to the people I love, to be able to afford an education that allows me to explore topics that interest me.
Graduation looms in the near future, and my days have been disappearing before I even recognize and appreciate them. Yet, this year has been so wonderful and beautiful; that is why it has gone by in a flash, a dizzying blend of events and friends and experiences and joys. I still have a few precious months left, and I hope to enjoy them to the fullest.
Spring is around the corner and how much quicker time will pass when it arrives. I love Georgetown in the spring: picnics outside, naps on the lawn, frozen yogurt and iced tea, sunglasses and sundresses and sandals.
I’m even grateful for my future, uncertain and far away as it seems. My solace and comfort in the face of overwhelming change is that God holds me in His hand, constantly, unfailingly. Today I feel so young and like there are a million experiences ahead of me.
Okay, so clearly, the priest was right. And perhaps this is a more difficult (though even more fulfilling) exercise when one is distraught. But help me nonetheless, Lord, to realize the beauty of my life whether I be happy or upset. You bless me, time and time and time again.
I decided to try this exercise and hopefully integrate it into my life. Where better to begin than with my spring break? I’ve been incredibly happy this week with my feeling of being connected to and surrounded by people who love and support me: I had a wonderful time visiting some of my best friends in Connecticut; I miss my beloved roommates; and I have been catching up with my family, miles and miles from home.
As I’ve talked with my friends and family, I’ve been overwhelmed by their recent joys and achievements, including several acceptances to amazing schools and programs, weddings, and similar feelings of belonging to supportive communities.
I feel so blessed by the way in which God has enabled me to travel during college. This week, I visited Connecticut and New York City, ate amazing food, experienced awesome cultural sights, and had my return home to anticipate. It was so refreshing to look forward to my return to DC; the drive from Union Station to my apartment allowed me to soak up the calming energy of DC, which has become home to me. There’s something so powerful about claiming one’s city as one’s own, even without realizing it.
I was shopping today and indulging in some treats. The weather has been beautiful, and I felt strong, young, and capable as I walked around town, blessed with a disposable income to treat myself.
Even as I jumped back into my thesis work today, I looked down at my computer and remembered how wonderful it is to own technology that connects me to the people I love, to be able to afford an education that allows me to explore topics that interest me.
Graduation looms in the near future, and my days have been disappearing before I even recognize and appreciate them. Yet, this year has been so wonderful and beautiful; that is why it has gone by in a flash, a dizzying blend of events and friends and experiences and joys. I still have a few precious months left, and I hope to enjoy them to the fullest.
Spring is around the corner and how much quicker time will pass when it arrives. I love Georgetown in the spring: picnics outside, naps on the lawn, frozen yogurt and iced tea, sunglasses and sundresses and sandals.
I’m even grateful for my future, uncertain and far away as it seems. My solace and comfort in the face of overwhelming change is that God holds me in His hand, constantly, unfailingly. Today I feel so young and like there are a million experiences ahead of me.
Okay, so clearly, the priest was right. And perhaps this is a more difficult (though even more fulfilling) exercise when one is distraught. But help me nonetheless, Lord, to realize the beauty of my life whether I be happy or upset. You bless me, time and time and time again.
Friday, March 2, 2012
To a Younger Me
Dear younger self,
A friend of mine told me that there is a trend lately to write a letter to one's younger self. It's supposed to help people love themselves and embrace the ways in which they have matured. I decided to sit down and write to you, younger self. Who knows if I will actually experience any revelations or if I even have wisdom to offer you. I feel like I am almost writing to a stranger; it’s so difficult to return to who I was, even just four years ago, as a senior in high school. Yet, I also so vividly remember what it felt like to wait for college acceptances and rejections, to prioritize getting into Georgetown in my daily prayers, to feel like I was about to leave a school that was everything I had ever known but perhaps somewhere I had never fully belonged.
Recently I re-read some of my old journals, and it is was oddly disconcerting. As I read, I felt a powerful sense of déjà vu, as though I was writing and reading my own words simultaneously. It felt as though I had just experienced those things, had felt the emotions only moments ago. The words felt like my own, and yet, they belonged to a stranger; my voice has grown and matured, but I feel an affinity with my younger voice too.
It made me wistful to read my insecurities, fears, and excitement for the future. If I could tell my younger self a few things I’ve finally learned, I would emphasize the joy of loving oneself, accepting oneself, and enjoying oneself in the moment. I needed the experiences I have had in college to finally become more self-confident, self-assured, knowledgeable, and experienced.
I remember that sense of being vulnerable and trying to overcome the numbness of my nervous shock before leaving for Georgetown for the first time. Other people seemed more emotional, more cognizant of the importance of the occasion; I felt as though I were going to some unknown land, worried that getting into Georgetown had been a fluke, and felt utterly in limbo. There’s something about a senior year that makes one feel simultaneously the most invested in a place one has ever been and abruptly nudged out of the nest. “You are an integral part of our community. See ya!”
A challenge I have faced in both my high school and college career is becoming comfortable with starting anew. So looking back at my senior high school self, I can clearly advise you to just jump in, think positively, anticipate places you want to visit, things you want to do, activities you want to join, imagine the people you will meet and grow to love. Even as I give this advice, it’s impossible to separate the then from the now, as this is a challenge I am on the verge of facing once more.
I have never loved Georgetown more than I do now. Of course, I experienced a variety of phases of love, each intense in its unique way: I faced newly-wed love as a freshman, in awe of the beautiful campus and the diverse people and new experiences; I underwent the “7 year itch” with my sophomore slump, when I was overloaded on stress; and I endured the heartache of a year’s separation from my beloved Georgetown when I went abroad. Now it’s all coalescing, and I’m overdosing on poignant moments and delightfully comfortable friendships, fixating on how wonderful it feels to belong, to be home.
So I’m trying, younger self, to give you wisdom and to learn from your wisdom, too. Perhaps it is time to think about how I’ve done it before, leaving to begin my college career at a campus I had never even stepped foot on. Twice. My pre-Georgetown self and my pre-Oxford self, and in a sense, even my pre-returning-to-Georgetown self each overcame fears and reservations and insecurities to fall in love with my new homes.
I want to tell you, don’t feel scared to tell people you’ll miss them terribly and express how much they mean to you. Don’t think that leaving home for the first real time means you will never return. Confront the worst-case scenario: if you can’t succeed at Georgetown, you’ll find somewhere you will. Start researching DC while simultaneously savoring your lasts at home. Revel in the lack of Kansas jokes. Enjoy being 18-on-the-verge-of-something-huge; you’ll never be that person again.
You didn’t appreciate yourself enough. You put yourself down, you wondered if you would ever be good enough, you questioned if you were shooting too high, you questioned if you could start over in a completely new place. I know now how wonderful you are. I know that you should have given yourself more credit. I know that you will achieve a great deal.
Please help me, younger self, to close the gap between the kind of insecurity you experienced and affirmation of self I can now provide you with. I want to feel that way about me, now, in this moment. And to a large extent, I do, certainly more than I ever have before. I’ll never be a 21-year-old-senior-at-Georgetown ever again. While I am too aware of this at times, the transience of this year, I truly am living up this year as much as I can.
I love it here. I love myself here. And I’m gradually confronting my nerves about what’s to come, my next new home. You have helped me to do so, younger self. Thank you.
Love,
Me
A friend of mine told me that there is a trend lately to write a letter to one's younger self. It's supposed to help people love themselves and embrace the ways in which they have matured. I decided to sit down and write to you, younger self. Who knows if I will actually experience any revelations or if I even have wisdom to offer you. I feel like I am almost writing to a stranger; it’s so difficult to return to who I was, even just four years ago, as a senior in high school. Yet, I also so vividly remember what it felt like to wait for college acceptances and rejections, to prioritize getting into Georgetown in my daily prayers, to feel like I was about to leave a school that was everything I had ever known but perhaps somewhere I had never fully belonged.
Recently I re-read some of my old journals, and it is was oddly disconcerting. As I read, I felt a powerful sense of déjà vu, as though I was writing and reading my own words simultaneously. It felt as though I had just experienced those things, had felt the emotions only moments ago. The words felt like my own, and yet, they belonged to a stranger; my voice has grown and matured, but I feel an affinity with my younger voice too.
It made me wistful to read my insecurities, fears, and excitement for the future. If I could tell my younger self a few things I’ve finally learned, I would emphasize the joy of loving oneself, accepting oneself, and enjoying oneself in the moment. I needed the experiences I have had in college to finally become more self-confident, self-assured, knowledgeable, and experienced.
I remember that sense of being vulnerable and trying to overcome the numbness of my nervous shock before leaving for Georgetown for the first time. Other people seemed more emotional, more cognizant of the importance of the occasion; I felt as though I were going to some unknown land, worried that getting into Georgetown had been a fluke, and felt utterly in limbo. There’s something about a senior year that makes one feel simultaneously the most invested in a place one has ever been and abruptly nudged out of the nest. “You are an integral part of our community. See ya!”
A challenge I have faced in both my high school and college career is becoming comfortable with starting anew. So looking back at my senior high school self, I can clearly advise you to just jump in, think positively, anticipate places you want to visit, things you want to do, activities you want to join, imagine the people you will meet and grow to love. Even as I give this advice, it’s impossible to separate the then from the now, as this is a challenge I am on the verge of facing once more.
I have never loved Georgetown more than I do now. Of course, I experienced a variety of phases of love, each intense in its unique way: I faced newly-wed love as a freshman, in awe of the beautiful campus and the diverse people and new experiences; I underwent the “7 year itch” with my sophomore slump, when I was overloaded on stress; and I endured the heartache of a year’s separation from my beloved Georgetown when I went abroad. Now it’s all coalescing, and I’m overdosing on poignant moments and delightfully comfortable friendships, fixating on how wonderful it feels to belong, to be home.
So I’m trying, younger self, to give you wisdom and to learn from your wisdom, too. Perhaps it is time to think about how I’ve done it before, leaving to begin my college career at a campus I had never even stepped foot on. Twice. My pre-Georgetown self and my pre-Oxford self, and in a sense, even my pre-returning-to-Georgetown self each overcame fears and reservations and insecurities to fall in love with my new homes.
I want to tell you, don’t feel scared to tell people you’ll miss them terribly and express how much they mean to you. Don’t think that leaving home for the first real time means you will never return. Confront the worst-case scenario: if you can’t succeed at Georgetown, you’ll find somewhere you will. Start researching DC while simultaneously savoring your lasts at home. Revel in the lack of Kansas jokes. Enjoy being 18-on-the-verge-of-something-huge; you’ll never be that person again.
You didn’t appreciate yourself enough. You put yourself down, you wondered if you would ever be good enough, you questioned if you were shooting too high, you questioned if you could start over in a completely new place. I know now how wonderful you are. I know that you should have given yourself more credit. I know that you will achieve a great deal.
Please help me, younger self, to close the gap between the kind of insecurity you experienced and affirmation of self I can now provide you with. I want to feel that way about me, now, in this moment. And to a large extent, I do, certainly more than I ever have before. I’ll never be a 21-year-old-senior-at-Georgetown ever again. While I am too aware of this at times, the transience of this year, I truly am living up this year as much as I can.
I love it here. I love myself here. And I’m gradually confronting my nerves about what’s to come, my next new home. You have helped me to do so, younger self. Thank you.
Love,
Me
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Hello, San Francisco
The feeling when the sunlight flickers across your face, your eyes closed, the heat and warmth of the sun’s rays permeating your being. That is San Francisco to me.
It was a short and beautiful trip, giving me a taste of a land I had never before visited. My mom and I flew in, over the mountains, the houses suddenly appearing on the face of the mountain sides, the city of San Francisco carved out of the landscape. Carved into the landscape. It felt so liberating to hug the coastline, to smell the water, to sense the possibilities latent in the land.
We arrived at our hotel, a cute old building that exuded old world charm. Our room was on the smaller side, as city hotel rooms often are, and we had to take a little old fashioned elevator up to reach it. We looked out over Union Square, lit up with palm trees bedecked in festive twinkle lights. As we settled in with snacks and diet coke, relaxing after a long day’s journey, the sound of jazz music and cable cars poured in the window, infusing our own little room, our own little world, with the sounds of San Francisco.
After I completed my teaching certification test, and experienced an edifying journey back to my hotel on an inner-city bus, we headed to Fisherman’s Wharf. I was glad my mom had overridden my request to stay at the Wharf; it was cheesey and noisy and touristy. But oh, the water. And seagulls. The taste of fried calamari, shrimp, fish. The sounds of barking seals at Pier 39. The Golden Gate Bridge beckoning from the horizon. Alcatraz Island looming a few miles out. And then sunset arrived on the scene, transforming the already beautiful water into a reflection of the warm and cool colors of twilight.
We headed back via cable car to Chinatown. I hanged off the side of the cable car, my feet perched on the edge, hands firmly gripping the metal bar. It was wonderfully cheesey. Chinatown was, as I had expected, disappointing. It’s dirty and crowded and if you wander into one shop, you’ve wandered into all of them.
My mom and I ventured into the largest Macy’s I have ever seen to find me a pair of boots and then got take-out from the Cheesecake Factory and picnicked in our room like queens. After only a day and a half, the hotel room had become home. It’s funny how that works.
The following day, my cousins who live in San Jose came and picked us up. We drove across the Golden Gate Bridge and ate lunch in Sausolito. Then we drove around the coast, venturing over to Ocean Beach. It was sunny, sunny, sunny. So clear and crisp and beautiful. The sun reflected on the damp sand, revealing tiny jellyfish across the beach. We dipped our feet in the freezing cold water, instantly numbed. It was surreal and dazzling and made me hunger for a San Franciscan summer (even though they’re still supposed to be cold).
Next we headed to Ghiradelli Sqaure, where I had milk chocolate truffles and hot chocolate that brought me straight back to Paris (where I had the best hot chocolate of my life). We drove down Lombard Street, slowly and carefully navigating the zig zags. And then we bid farewell to our cousins and headed back to the hotel to pack for our departure the following morning.
It’s funny how as soon as you get used to a place, it feels like it is time to leave. It’s a cruel twist of life really. I still can’t picture myself there, on the West Coast, in California, in San Francisco. Maybe, though, it will become another of my homes. A place of my own. Maybe it, too, will belong to me.
I suppose I’ll just have to give it a year or so and then we’ll know.
It was a short and beautiful trip, giving me a taste of a land I had never before visited. My mom and I flew in, over the mountains, the houses suddenly appearing on the face of the mountain sides, the city of San Francisco carved out of the landscape. Carved into the landscape. It felt so liberating to hug the coastline, to smell the water, to sense the possibilities latent in the land.
We arrived at our hotel, a cute old building that exuded old world charm. Our room was on the smaller side, as city hotel rooms often are, and we had to take a little old fashioned elevator up to reach it. We looked out over Union Square, lit up with palm trees bedecked in festive twinkle lights. As we settled in with snacks and diet coke, relaxing after a long day’s journey, the sound of jazz music and cable cars poured in the window, infusing our own little room, our own little world, with the sounds of San Francisco.
After I completed my teaching certification test, and experienced an edifying journey back to my hotel on an inner-city bus, we headed to Fisherman’s Wharf. I was glad my mom had overridden my request to stay at the Wharf; it was cheesey and noisy and touristy. But oh, the water. And seagulls. The taste of fried calamari, shrimp, fish. The sounds of barking seals at Pier 39. The Golden Gate Bridge beckoning from the horizon. Alcatraz Island looming a few miles out. And then sunset arrived on the scene, transforming the already beautiful water into a reflection of the warm and cool colors of twilight.
We headed back via cable car to Chinatown. I hanged off the side of the cable car, my feet perched on the edge, hands firmly gripping the metal bar. It was wonderfully cheesey. Chinatown was, as I had expected, disappointing. It’s dirty and crowded and if you wander into one shop, you’ve wandered into all of them.
My mom and I ventured into the largest Macy’s I have ever seen to find me a pair of boots and then got take-out from the Cheesecake Factory and picnicked in our room like queens. After only a day and a half, the hotel room had become home. It’s funny how that works.
The following day, my cousins who live in San Jose came and picked us up. We drove across the Golden Gate Bridge and ate lunch in Sausolito. Then we drove around the coast, venturing over to Ocean Beach. It was sunny, sunny, sunny. So clear and crisp and beautiful. The sun reflected on the damp sand, revealing tiny jellyfish across the beach. We dipped our feet in the freezing cold water, instantly numbed. It was surreal and dazzling and made me hunger for a San Franciscan summer (even though they’re still supposed to be cold).
Next we headed to Ghiradelli Sqaure, where I had milk chocolate truffles and hot chocolate that brought me straight back to Paris (where I had the best hot chocolate of my life). We drove down Lombard Street, slowly and carefully navigating the zig zags. And then we bid farewell to our cousins and headed back to the hotel to pack for our departure the following morning.
It’s funny how as soon as you get used to a place, it feels like it is time to leave. It’s a cruel twist of life really. I still can’t picture myself there, on the West Coast, in California, in San Francisco. Maybe, though, it will become another of my homes. A place of my own. Maybe it, too, will belong to me.
I suppose I’ll just have to give it a year or so and then we’ll know.
Friday, January 6, 2012
The Beginning of the End
So here I am again. Leaving for the airport in 6.5 hours with little sleep expected. It has been a bustling day, defined—as too often I think my life is—by to-do lists. I’ve done far too good a job of ignoring those to-do lists this break, however; now is the hectic time that accounts for that leniency (aka laziness).
Today I gloried in being able to drive. Windows down in the 60 degree weather (is it really January?!?). Reading with my dog curled up next to me. Being hugged by my mom. Running errands with my little brother. Glorying in the vast land of convenient good deals that is Walmart. Looking up at a non-empty night sky for once, reacquainting myself with my beloved big dipper.
I feel sometimes that this lifestyle of commuting between states and homes requires too much stocking up, too many goodbyes, a lot of time in-between rather than in time. Looking back at my first year of college and how exciting my flights to school were, I feel so jaded and old now. Somehow I’ve changed and grown between then and now. Somehow, despite myself, I take how blessed I am for granted.
Tomorrow—er, today—I go to California, to the land that may soon be my home. I’m very stressed about the test that required this trip in the first place; I have to take teacher certification tests in California before moving there this summer.
I’m struggling to process anything and everything, probably because I am so tired. Still, I realize this is big. California. It sounds like the name of some foreign country, an exotic land, a place that wouldn’t be my home.
But in all likelihood it will be in just six months. Here I am on the verge of something big: in less than one week I will have commenced my very last semester of college. I will be “an adult” by one of its various definitions and hallmarks.
I want to go. I don’t want to leave. I want to draw a little triangle between Kansas, DC, and California and plop myself in the middle. I want everyone I know and care about to be accessible, for no home to be an ending or a final farewell.
Just help me, I pray, to appreciate this last semester for what it is. I have some stressful things ahead of me (i.e. writing and finishing my thesis), but this is it.
This is it.
Today I gloried in being able to drive. Windows down in the 60 degree weather (is it really January?!?). Reading with my dog curled up next to me. Being hugged by my mom. Running errands with my little brother. Glorying in the vast land of convenient good deals that is Walmart. Looking up at a non-empty night sky for once, reacquainting myself with my beloved big dipper.
I feel sometimes that this lifestyle of commuting between states and homes requires too much stocking up, too many goodbyes, a lot of time in-between rather than in time. Looking back at my first year of college and how exciting my flights to school were, I feel so jaded and old now. Somehow I’ve changed and grown between then and now. Somehow, despite myself, I take how blessed I am for granted.
Tomorrow—er, today—I go to California, to the land that may soon be my home. I’m very stressed about the test that required this trip in the first place; I have to take teacher certification tests in California before moving there this summer.
I’m struggling to process anything and everything, probably because I am so tired. Still, I realize this is big. California. It sounds like the name of some foreign country, an exotic land, a place that wouldn’t be my home.
But in all likelihood it will be in just six months. Here I am on the verge of something big: in less than one week I will have commenced my very last semester of college. I will be “an adult” by one of its various definitions and hallmarks.
I want to go. I don’t want to leave. I want to draw a little triangle between Kansas, DC, and California and plop myself in the middle. I want everyone I know and care about to be accessible, for no home to be an ending or a final farewell.
Just help me, I pray, to appreciate this last semester for what it is. I have some stressful things ahead of me (i.e. writing and finishing my thesis), but this is it.
This is it.
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
It All Began with a Movie...
I went to see We Bought a Zoo tonight, which was surprisingly well-done and moving for all of its cheesiness and clichés. There was a quote that I absolutely love, made by Matt Damon’s character, Benjamin Mee:
“You know, sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty seconds of just embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it.”
This philosophy helped Benjamin muster up the courage to introduce himself to his wife. I hope to live that way, to be able to get over myself and my insecurities to be bold and take action when the occasion calls for it. I also hope to find love like Benjamin did.
He mourns his wife’s death so beautifully and in such a moving manner. Sometimes I rather morbidly fantasize about how my loved ones would respond to my death. I know it sounds absurd, but imagine the opposite of Gatsby’s funeral, and it does somehow become soothing. I think of all the people who have touched my life, all the people who mean or have meant something to me, and it always serves to make me feel better. In the similar way that a teacher can almost always find at least one positive thing to say about his/her students, I think of the collisions I have had with beautiful, wonderful people: my rather romantic soul thinks that they could probably think something generous of me. That my life had purpose in that people would mourn my loss, because that would mean that I had touched them, however fleetingly.
And my romantic nature does not end there. I watched this movie, observed Benjamin’s sorrow, and thought of the ways in which his mourning proved his love. I asked myself, will I ever develop the kind of intimacy with a person, with my hypothetical husband, that it will feel as though my loss is the cutting off of an essential part of him? Will this man, somewhere out there, avoid the junk food aisle because the sea salt and vinegar potato chips will make him think of me? Will he smell his old sweatshirts that I appropriated, looking for a semblance of me? Will he regularly scroll through photos of me, of us, to bring memories of our life together back to life?
It’s silly right? and perhaps a tad too personal, to be sharing this with you. My wacky thoughts and fantasies. The ways in which I have carried a movie’s story to my life and questioned how my future husband would miss me if I died. But there was just something about this story, an embedded romantic comedy in a family-friendly-tragedy, that made the romcom-fantasy-version-of-love more believable.
Sometimes the smallest things spark our interest; sometimes a beautiful story is too beautiful to remain outside of one’s own personal experiences and dreams. So I claim that story. And fantasize about my potential marital bliss who knows how many years down the road.
“You know, sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty seconds of just embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it.”
This philosophy helped Benjamin muster up the courage to introduce himself to his wife. I hope to live that way, to be able to get over myself and my insecurities to be bold and take action when the occasion calls for it. I also hope to find love like Benjamin did.
He mourns his wife’s death so beautifully and in such a moving manner. Sometimes I rather morbidly fantasize about how my loved ones would respond to my death. I know it sounds absurd, but imagine the opposite of Gatsby’s funeral, and it does somehow become soothing. I think of all the people who have touched my life, all the people who mean or have meant something to me, and it always serves to make me feel better. In the similar way that a teacher can almost always find at least one positive thing to say about his/her students, I think of the collisions I have had with beautiful, wonderful people: my rather romantic soul thinks that they could probably think something generous of me. That my life had purpose in that people would mourn my loss, because that would mean that I had touched them, however fleetingly.
And my romantic nature does not end there. I watched this movie, observed Benjamin’s sorrow, and thought of the ways in which his mourning proved his love. I asked myself, will I ever develop the kind of intimacy with a person, with my hypothetical husband, that it will feel as though my loss is the cutting off of an essential part of him? Will this man, somewhere out there, avoid the junk food aisle because the sea salt and vinegar potato chips will make him think of me? Will he smell his old sweatshirts that I appropriated, looking for a semblance of me? Will he regularly scroll through photos of me, of us, to bring memories of our life together back to life?
It’s silly right? and perhaps a tad too personal, to be sharing this with you. My wacky thoughts and fantasies. The ways in which I have carried a movie’s story to my life and questioned how my future husband would miss me if I died. But there was just something about this story, an embedded romantic comedy in a family-friendly-tragedy, that made the romcom-fantasy-version-of-love more believable.
Sometimes the smallest things spark our interest; sometimes a beautiful story is too beautiful to remain outside of one’s own personal experiences and dreams. So I claim that story. And fantasize about my potential marital bliss who knows how many years down the road.
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