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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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…”

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.